Guilin trip

So when Hanson came this time, one of our goals was to go to Guilin. Guilin is in the south of China and is known for its picturesque scenery. If you have a 20 RMB bill, on the back is a picture of Guilin on the LiJiang river. We passed by it on a boat.

We left on Thursday afternoon and we had researched quite a few things to do already. We scheduled a river cruise that went to YanShuo, a small town about 1.5 hour drive away. The cruise lasted a good 4 hours and we had the typical "tourist experience" with lunch served on board. After getting to YanShuo we decided to pass on a packaged tour and decided to rent and ride bikes around the small town. We hired a guide and since she had grown up in YanShuo she knew the backroads and where to go. It was a great experience- we saw the scenery at our own pace and then stopped to take a bamboo raft down another small river. We put the bikes on the raft as well!

Then we rode around to see a 1400 year old Banyan tree and hiked up Moon hill before rushing back to get tickets to see Zhang Yimou's folk musical, "Third Sister Liu." Zhang Yimou was the director of the Beijing Olympic events, and this performance did not dissapoint! The whole event was on the water (Vegas "O show" on crack). Let's just say, hundreds of performers, mountain scenery, elaborate costumes... amazing!
The next day we spent mostly in Guilin city and did quite a few things like tour the Reed Flute cave, ride a cable car to see the heights, tour the four lakes and see the elephant trunk hill.
The third day we joined a small tour (total 4) to go visit the LongSheng Terraced fields. These rice fields are terraced to utilize the land to the fullest and a batch of rain came in which filled a few of the levels to show a nice reflection from the sky. In the summer months each level would be filled with water. You can just imagine the thousands of man hours spent to build this!