Relaxing Guilin in China

My wife and I enroute to Shanghai had a short detour to Guilin located in the province of Guangxi, China. The city is famous for its beautiful landscape. I have seen many pictures of the Guilin landscape so it's been some time since I wanted to come here.

Guangxi is an autonomous region in China. I think there are a few other similar regions. There are also a number of minority tribes leaving here. The major ones are Miao, Zhuang and Yao. This is photo of one of the main tribe at the hotel where we stayed.

Lovely dress and look at headgear and ornaments

We were told that there are more than 300,000 limestone structures in Guangxi and it was actually under the sea millions of years ago. The place is also just a few hundred metres above sea level now.

Lovely sunset from our hotel with the Li River

Guilin city is not large by Chinese standards. It still has a slight rural feel to it but it is also progressing very fast as tourism is the main income earner. The city proper is well maintained and very tourist friendly as well.

Two pagodas on a lake in the middle of the city

Lots of contruction is going on at a furious pace as in other parts of China. Here is a large mall under construction on the outskirt of the city centre.

Huge mall under construction

The lifestyle is still quite quaint and not as fast as large cities like Shanghai or Guangzhou. The number of vehicles is also not too large, thereby the pollution is also not too bad.

A lady pulling her son on a toy cart

Motorbike attached to a body to carry stuff, is it a motor lorry?

Taking a break from the heat and sun

As in most cities in China, there is always a pedestrian street for shopping and Guilin is no exception. They have done up the place well and it is very pleasant to walk around.

Some areas has plenty of shade from the sun

A centre piece clock tower

This is view of the outskirt of the city. You can see the contrast

On the fringe of the city, life is more relaxed

Guilin in Chinese means a forest of Osmanthus trees. The Osmanthus is the official tree of the city and they are very proud of it. The flower is used to provide flavour to tea and used in candies, perfume, food, drinks and whatever else they can think of. They informed us that the whole city is planted with this tree.

This is how the Osmanthus tree looks like

At one of the souvenir places, they used spent bullets to make things. Thought it was quite a novelty.

A bullet jet fighter

A bullet tank

They also had some nice scroll paintings

On the way to the airport, it had been raining for more than a day (almost non stop). When we arrived it was really hot but the rained cooled down the air. I didn't expect it to rain here like in a monsoon.

From the taxi

The Guilin airport is fairly simple. It is not a large airport but clean and confortable.

A look at the departure area

Souvenir shop at the airport. See the crowd next to it? See below for reason

Still raining and also causing our flight to be delayed

Crowd because they were giving a free photo taken with the A380 in the background

People waiting for their photo

Due to the delay, I went to get some snacks. Saw this local brand potato chips and tried it. Regretted at once. Should have stucked with Pringles or Lays. It was horrible. You know what is the flavour? It's "potato flavour". Kid you not. See the photo below. After tasting it, it may not be made of potato???

Potato flavour potatoes

I saw this sign at the men's toilet. It was for the urinal. The are doing this at most places in China now. Maybe it's due to their poor aim? Apparently they have done a saying in Chinese that roughly goes at "a step forward is a step forward for better Chinese culture" or something like that.

Poor aim by the Chinese?

At one of the booth at the airport, they were selling these umbrellas. A very clever idea. You would never guess it's actually an umbrella.

Both are umbrellas

It was a good break for us with the slow pace. I have broken the trip into a few segments this time.

Until the next time, cheers.