Guilin

A few of us took a trip to Guilin on Saturday, the city I flew into from Beijing. It has an estimated population of around 1.3 million and is the only city near Yangshuo with any size. But, all the students say Guilin is a really small city with only 1 street. Maybe for Chinese standards, but it's a much bigger city than what I'm used to.

Justin was wanting a new laptop, so he invited me, Francisco, Eiki- a student friend, and Tao- the IT guy at Omeida, along with him. The completely full bus ride there took about an hour and 45 minutes. Tao speaks local dialect so we got tickets for 10 kuai apiece. This sort of upset Eiki because he said he paid 40 kuai one time because he speaks the northern dialect of Mandarin.

*As a side note- there are usually three prices given in Yangshuo- the highest is to the foreigner, middle is to the Chinese tourist, and the cheapest price is given to the local person.

So, anytime the bus driver needed a smoke break, which was more than one occasion, he pulled over for a break. We stopped several times to pick people up from the side of the road, and many other times at bus stops in the small villages between here and Guilin.

We got off the bus and onto a city bus once we arrived in Guilin. Of course, there were no seats and since I'm the giant American, I stood with my neck bent because the ceiling on the bus was about 4 inches shorter than I am. This caused a stir of laughter from the Chinese on the bus, as well as amongst my friends. Sorry I don't have a picture.

We went to a shopping center where Tao has friends that work for a computer store. This place was crazy. Floor after floor of computer stores, cameras, speakers, etc. It was like a Best Buy on steroids. I found a 220 V ac adapter for my camera battery charger, they wanted 65 kuai, I gave 50. It seems strange, but you can even bargain at these types of stores as well. Justin got the price of his computer down a few hundred kuai, Fran bargained for an 8 gig jump drive, and we also got a version of the new OS Windows 7 (more than likely pirated).

While we were waiting for them to load the english version of the operating system, Eiki and I went 'eye shopping' as he called it. It was good to finally see a part of China where I'm the only foreigner around. Everytime we walked by people Eiki would say, "watch watch watch, all the girls look at you." He said it was because I was a very tall and handsome white man. I liked the compliment, but I thought it was just because I was the only foreigner there.

While we were walking around, Eiki's dog nose senses started going crazy and he smelled something that he said he must have. Here's a picture of the street food vendor we ate at with small birds and squid on skewers. We had the squid and spice, very good.











Here's another picture of Eiki over looking the Li River with mountains in the background.














Here's a picture of Justin on the bus with his new laptop.

The ride back wasn't as bad, it probably only took an hour or so. We only stopped a few times at bus stops to let people off. So it ended up being a long day, but it was good to get away from Yangshuo for awhile and see a little of the city life. I think next Saturday we're going to do the opposite and head out to Xingping. It's considered one of the most beautiful places in China, so much that it covers the back of the 20 kuai bill.