Day 8

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Today we got up early to finish packing and getting ready for our trip to mainland China. We took a taxi, all 5 of us which is a feat because the taxis are little 5 person cars so counting the driver there are six of us squished in, to the MTR which is the subway,

then we wandered around trying to find the train station. It was kind of like the blind leading the blind but we made it with time to spare.

We took the train to Guangzhou where we were met by a tour guide to take us to the airport. He told us a little about Guangzhou which is a huge city with 10 million people in it. We didn’t have time to look around the city because we had to catch a flight but on the way back we will have time to look around the city a bit. 

We got to the airport and tried to get exit row seats because they have more leg room but they were all taken. When we got on the airplane we were in the row in front of the exit row seats. Jacob noticed that no one was sitting in them so he and Jason moved and we all got our own rows.

When we got to Guilin there was another tour guide to meet us to take us to our hotel. His name is Mark and he was really nice and talked most of the way from the airport to the hotel telling us things about Guilin. Guilin is a small town and only has 560,000 people living here. There are 2 rivers, the Li river and the Peach Blossom river. He told us that there aren’t many polluting factors here because they got rid of all the industrial plants along the river. It was a closed city, which means foreigners were not allowed to visit, until the 1970’s.  

The hotel we are staying in is really nice. 

It is right on the bank of a beautiful lake and Jacob and Jason got a lake side view. Mom, dad, and I couldn’t get one because we needed a bigger room to fit the three of us. I tried to convince my mom that the girls should have a room and the boys should have a room so we could get the view but she didn’t go for that. 

This is the view from the boy's room at sunrise.

This is the view at night. They like to light everything in the city up with cool colors.

After we checked in we laid down for a bit and then decided to take a walk around the lake. It was absolutely beautiful. These are some pictures that I took.

These flowers are on all along the paths that go around the lake. They are beautiful.

This is a picture that we asked someone to take of us while we were walking around the lake. He kept repositioning himself but we're glad he did, look at how beautiful it turned out. 

Bridges like these are all over the lake. They are so cool.

It is so green here and absolutely BEAUTIFUL!

This is a stone boat on the lake. I'm not sure the significance of it, but it's cool looking. 

I loved this little fountain thing. It was very unusual looking and had water running out from the fountain on both sides with these glass plates above the water. 

I was trying to take an "artistic" picture of my parents. Jason couldn't resist. We'll see how long it takes him to realize that I have posted this, but hey, he did it and let me take a picture, so I will post it! Don't worry, I did get a good one of my parents.

But then of coarse, we had to take a similar picture of the kids. My dad did a pretty good job.

We then went to dinner at the hotel. We had real Chinese food and couldn’t finish it all and it was only 220 RMB which is like 31 dollars for 5 people! It was a super nice restaurant in a 4 star hotel too. I took some pictures of the food. They put decorative things on the plates of food as well.

This one is butterflies made out of carrots. Way cool.

This is a picture of, I'm a little ashamed to say, my spot at the table after we were done eating. They use tiny plates and it's hard to keep everything on the plates and off the table. 

After dinner we came back to our rooms and listened to conference until everyone was falling asleep and then we all went to bed.