Day 9

 Monday, April 6, 2009

Today was a jam packed day. We all woke up early and had a fabulous breakfast buffet with a man making omelets to your liking, to pastries, to Chinese rice noodles. It was great. Then we got ready to go out with Mark, our tour guide for the day. We were a little late getting down there because everyone was trying to get on the internet or do other things before we left but we got down to the lobby and took off.

 First we went to Reed Flute Cave which is about 5 kilometers northwest of downtown Guilin. The cave got it’s name from the verdant reeds growing inside which people use to make flutes. The cave is 240 meters long and there are way cool rock formations all throughout. Of coarse as seems to be tradition here, they colored the formations with very colorful lights and because it was a cave and there is very little light except the colored lights on the rocks, taking pictures can prove to be difficult. I didn’t bring my tripod so my nice big camera was out, but my smaller one proved to work well because I am a genius and changed the settings for it to take these pictures.  

This is a picture of us all in the caves.

Pretty amazing huh?

The rocks were all sorts of different colors.

This was the best part. It kind looks like a little city. It was spectacular!

Inside one of the caves they had thousands of years old turtles. They were so old they could hardly move. They had one in the water and if you threw a coin on his back and it stayed on there, then it was supposed to bring you good luck. My coin hit the shell but didn't stay. They also had lots of baby turtles. If you could get a coin to stay on their back, they would give it to you for free. They were also for sale for 60 RMB which is like 10 dollars. I wanted one!

After the caves we went to a pearl factory. They showed us how they get the pearls and how to tell real pearls from fake ones. Then they had a fashion show with some of their really nice Jewelry. It was kind of neat. Then they had a place where you could shop (of coarse) and I bought a pearl necklace there. It's really pretty. 

Next we went to Elephant Trunk Hill, which is located on the western bank of the Li River, which is the main river that runs through Guilin. It got it's name because the shape of the hill looks like a huge elephant drinking from the river through it's trunk. The hole in the middle is called Shui Yue Cave, which means Water Moon Cave. The name was given because of the space between the trunk and the body of the "elephant" makes a round cave which resembles a full moon drifting on the water. You can also climb to the top where there is a pagoda and a beautiful view but we decided to skip that part because we were climbing another hill later. 

These boats take you over to the cave in the mountain.  

 I thought these elephants in the water were cool.

So of coarse Jason had to climb on them and we all had to take another family picture. 

Instead of hiking we walked through Lovers Park which is on the other side of the river from Elephant Trunk Hill. It was a pleasant park with stone carvings throughout. Of coarse we had to take some totally tourist pictures of our family.

There were little flowers all over in the grass in the park. 

 After Elephant Trunk Hill and Lovers Park, we went to lunch. It was a set lunch at a Hotel, which means that you don’t order, they just bring you food. It was traditional Chinese food and everything tasted very good.

After lunch we went to Fubo Hill which means Wave Subduing Hill. It's just 2 kilometers away from Elephant Trunk Hill, right in the middle of the city and on the Li River. It is almost 700 feet high and emerges a little over 200 feet above the water. Half of it is on land and half of it goes out into the river. The name comes from the fact that the water is blocked where the hill goes out into the water and so the people believe that is has the power to subdue waves. We climbed 325 steps to get to the top! We were a little worn out when we got there but coming down wasn't as bad. 

This is the a picture from the top of Fubo Hill

And another one

These are the steps we climbed.

After we climbed down Fubo Hill, we saw a zip line that went out over the Li River and we decided we would try it out. 

As you went out over the river, there was a big drum that they would hit all dramatically. Afterward my mom played it. She was pretty good, she used to play in high school and hasn't lost her touch. 

After all of that we went back to the hotel and got ready for dinner. We walked around looking for a local place to eat and we found a hot pots place. It was really fun and really good food. 

This is how the flat wear came. I have never seen this before but I guess hopefully it being shrinkwrapped means that it is sanitary. 

After dinner we walked around the night market. It was a pretty crazy shindig. They close one side of the street so people can set up their canopies to sell their stuff. It was really busy and fun to walk around and see all the stuff. We walked to the main square because there was a hotel that our tour guide told us about that was called the Waterfall hotel where every night they would have a waterfall. We didn't know what that meant but when we saw it, it was amazing. 

Here is a picture of the hotel with the water cascading down. 

This is a video of the show.

While we were waiting, Jason and I decided to take some pictures. We tried many, many times to be able to see both of our teeth in the funny pictures we were taking and we were, I'm sure, very entertaining to all the Chinese people around us. 

I know you are totally jealous!

After all of that we all went back to the hotel and crashed because we were way worn out.