China Stop 2 - Guilin

Arrived in Guilin late in the afternoon and went straight to the hotel. We had the rest of the day to explore the city ourselves before beginning the tour the following day. Although it was quite cold and windy out we wandered downtown from our hotel through some walking streets and around the 4 lakes and 2 rivers that surround the city.

For dinner we stopped in at a local restaurant that seemed quite full and lively thinking it would be a good pick. The waitress suggested the local tea which was an interesting mix of tea leaves, giant nuts and some flowers. It tastes great but sure looked like witch's brew in the pot.

Dinner itself was quite disappointing. The waitress suggested we try the signature dish of the area the "Li River Shrimp". While they looked great on the plate what you can't tell is that each shrimp is no bigger than a nickel with the shell on. Not much to actually "eat". The food in general in the south of China was pretty disappointing for me so I'm not really going to talk about food again until the Beijing part.

The next day the first stop was the Reed Flute Cave. Normally, I'm not a big fan of cave tours - they are usually cold, dark, wet, and smelly. This tour was quite different - these caves were truly 'cavernous' with ceilings that reached up 3 stories and a maze of rooms that went deep into the mountain. It was all very impressive although I found the neon colored lighting a bit distracting even though it lent itself to some pretty cool pictures.

The rest of the day was spent touring around the city including climbing up to the highest point in the city where we could see the surrounding landscape and a preview of things to come.