Guilin Part l

Now for our Guilin tour. What a beautiful countryside!!! The hour and a half flight from Xiamen to Guilin was pretty uneventful. Our guide picked us up and we travelled to our hotel.

Our tour in Guilin included the rice fields of Ping' An home of the Yoa and Zhuang people. To see the rice up close we had to climb 'big mountain', which was about 500 steps. The further up we went, the more pictures were taken, the scenery was beautiful. Although, it was a cloudy day, we were able to get the feel for the area. Up we go. I'll tell you these people have the art of commercialism down to a science. As we continued, we were able to walk through the village and actually see the people at work and going about their business. I managed to go 3/4 of the way while everyone else went to the top. I figured I had nothing to prove, so I sat and soak in the atmosphere. Mind you, it didn't take long for the others to come back. On our descend we stop in at a restaurant and enjoyed the local cuisine and hospitality. Dad was a big hit and luckily the ladies knew how to speak some English. With Dad's English and their English they hit it off pretty good. We have been pleasantly surprised that the food we have eaten so far has been quite tasty. Although for dad, not much in the way of dessert, particularly cake. Yet, he has been quite taken by the beer, only because Jagermeister is hard to find. As we continued to descend we did some shopping before returning back to Guilin.





On our way back to the hotel, we stopped off at a Tea farm, where a tea ceremony was performed. A variety of teas were sampled and enjoyed. We purchased some wild green tea picked from the mountains.

Our next quick stop was, you'll never guess........ a foot message! Dad was pretty happy about that.