Boating on the River Li.
Got up c.10am. Notice a pattern emerging here?!
Actually, I should have got up at 8am for an optional Tai Chi lesson but meh. I should also have had a Chinese art lesson at 10am but meh to that as well!
Had a slightly off stomach so had a chocolate milk shake and chocolate pancake for breakfast. Chocolate. The cure-all drug of the new century! Then I had a bit of a wander around, didn't do much else in the morning.
Anyhow. One thing I *did* do was a sort of overview of Chinese cuisine! Five of us (me, Louise, Tom, Mona, and Radka), plus about eight or nine more from a different tour party, basically watched over a Chinese chef cook up some food! And then we ate it! It was actually very useful to see how the meals and a couple of the sauces are made up; mostly with pretty simple ingredients and many different kinds of oils (peanut oil being the preferred one it seems). We also saw a "flavour enhancer", presumably the notorious MSG (which makes it sound like a Chinese rapper!); it's like a white powder. A couple of the group had a go at cooking for themselves, under the chef's watchful eyes. Radka wanted to try cooking the eggplant dish because whenever she tries, she fails. Her conclusion was that in the USA she's using the wrong kind of eggplant ...
Had a wander through Yangshuo main town, it's like a whole different world! Yangshuo West Street is simply quite fake! Beyond the small waterway, over the bridge, there are no tourists, no bars, it's real people living real lives, and you don't get hassled everywhere you turn. I also reached the river and had a walk up and down it, looking out over to the countryside beyond. Yangshuo seems to literally stop at the river, there are no bridges over it that I could see and no real buildings on the other side. You can go on river cruises down it as far as Guilin if you really wanted to, but I suppose the scenery is the same as that we saw on the trip to Moon Hill.
We left Yangshuo around 7:30pm after Jane gave us a brief overview of Chengdu. The idea is that we really only have a day to see it and it would be a very full day too so we'd better have good plans! We took the minibus to Guilin airport, via Guilin town centre and its Vegas-like neon lights, all very tacky! It was a two-hour bus ride, and along the way we all chatted; maybe I kinda opened out a bit too much to Jane, James, and Dette ...
We were talking about love and stuff like that; I was fending off rumours (again) about me and Louise! They thought I had to love myself more and that I was maybe too much of an old-fashioned romantic. I am coming to the conclusion that there's only one woman in my heart, that deeply, and I've never met her ...
We reached the airport with only a few moments to spare before check-in closed. Valerie taught me some Tai Chi moves as we looked after the bags while everyone else relieved themselves, and then we checked in. Kathrin had trouble checking-in with her Tai Chi sword, but that was all sorted out in the end I am glad to say.
The one thing that stood out to me about the airport was that all the signs and announcements were in both Chinese and English (bad English sometimes though!); this kind of surprised me as I wouldn't have expected English to be quite as widespread as that; I'd have imagined that Guilin airport was used primarily by Chinese rather than foreign tourists. It's not a town you think of when you think China.
The plane was due to leave at 22:45 but, as was generally expected, it was delayed. Whether it's a feature of all Chinese airports, or just of Guilin we don't know, but next to the gate waiting zone there was a room whose primary function was to provide entertainment for those with delayed flights. It had two table-tennis tables, several tables for mah-jongg, newspapers, reclining chairs etc. The other interesting thing is that, although there was nothing stopping anyone going in beforehand, no-one was even remotely interested in the area until it was announced that our flight was delayed. Trustworthy lot, the Chinese!! We headed for the table-tennis and, in several turns, we had fun playing doubles. Overall winners seemed to be the partnership of Tom and Mirella (experience and youth LOL). A couple of the others just sat and read, including Louise who kept herself to herself by sitting over in the seats by the gate!
Eventually we boarded the flight, about an hour late. Tom made some knowing comments about it being Friday 13th, and about China's internal safety record for flights. James called me a cynic for saying similar things!
It was quite a rocky flight, just over an hour and ten minutes. We were given some food en route - just a basic roll, salami-type stuff, bit of cake - not a lot really. I was right at the back of the flight, sitting between Andy and James. In front of us the two Odettes were busy comforting a Chinese girl on her first ever flight, and teaching her to do crosswords, which is apparently more than her boyfriend was doing, and he was only sitting across the aisle from her! It was probably the second roughest landing I've had, there once was a flight into Birmingham (KLM I think) that I was certain was going to crash ...
Had a half-hour minibus to the hotel, went past a statue of Chairman Mao, looked kinda nice all lit up! Reached the hotel at around 2am; we had to be up around 7am!!
As a side-note, it is interesting that by the time the plane actually took to the air, it had passed midnight; and hence we didn't actually *fly* until Saturday 14th!! Also, on the plane, the flight announcements were all in English; this was an *internal* flight across China. Maybe it was for our benefit (we were pretty much the only foreigners on board), but the pilot *did* speak good English.