July 23, 2008 Wednesday Guilin

I think the best day of all was today. We checked out of the hotel by 8 AM and were on our way to the airport. We had to go through security 2 times, checked our bags and went through a security again. We got on a plane and left a few minutes before 12 noon. We had lunch on the plane and arrived in Guilin (Qui-Lynn) by about 2. It is a beautiful little city (6000, 000 people) in the southern part of China. In fact it is only 500 Kilometers (I think that is about 300 miles) from Vietnam. When I think of all the American history that took place so close to here, it is amazing to me. It is subtropical and full of Limestone Mountains. The have lots of rice paddies that they plow with water buffalo.

The new guide (Dave) or he likes to be called Wei, told us about so many interesting things. They have fishermen who fish with cormorants. These are birds with the ring around their necks that you see in children’s books. He explained that they have to train the birds. They make sure when they are ready to fish the cormorants are hungry or they would not do the fishing. They go after the fish (which they can’t swallow) and bring them back to the fisherman, who then feeds them.
Wei told us there are lots of snakes here, some of which are poisonous. One kind of snake is called “5 steps”. Can you guess why? Because the person gets only 5 steps before he dies.
We went to a huge park where there is a famous rock formation called the camel. It really looks like a camel. He told us that in 1993, Bill Clinton gave a short speech right in front of that rock. We all wondered what he said, but Way did not know. In the same park we saw 2 pandas in a cage. I was glad I got to see them because last time I saw them in Beijing, I did not get a good a good view and it was so crowded in the zoo. There were two monkeys in the trees putting on a show for us. It was very hot.

We also saw some pandas in the park.
Then we went to a place called Folded Brocade. It is 400 steps to a view of the whole city. It was wonderful because it cooled down, and a little breeze came up for a very pleasant climb. However once we got up to the top, it began to pour….literally. Lighting and thunder and huge drops of rain soaked us in minutes. We tried to stay in some shelter but we were all soaked. We all came back to the bus refreshed and happy. I think it was because it was not sooooo hot after the rain.
Anyway, the day was wonderful, and we all feel really good. Nobody is sick now. (Knock on wood).