Guilin Day 1
I’ve stolen mum’s phone for a few days. Re-learning how to function an iPhone is not ideal, but travelling and seeing wonderful places without being able to save the memories with photos is an unbearable thought. Today is the first proper day of our 4 day (shopping) tour of Guilin, China.
First activity of the day was rice terraces. Didn’t understand any of what the tour guide said in the bus on our way there and by the time we arrived, no one could be bothered remembering any of it, so no translations for us. Well, at least I know I’m somewhere in China. Apparently the rice terraces were up a mountain, so we could either walk (40 mins in the hot sun) or take a cable car, but we had to decide as a whole group. Obviously, the cable car option won. After some time of fluffing around and being confused, we finally took the cable car up. Turns out, the cable car ride was around 30 mins up (pretty sure walking wasn’t even an option – probably would’ve taken days!). Note: don’t trust anything anyone says, even if 2 people supposedly hear the same thing. Had to keep reminding myself not to think about dodgy made-in-China products – I’m SURE this cable car is regularly checked and meets international safety requirements. Definitely. Just keep breathing and don’t look down. The view was amazing! 360 degree views rice terraces flowing down the sides of mountains. Pity they recently got harvested though. Just a few weeks ago they would have been even more amazing to see.
Hong Kong to China
A few months ago, mum found out about a cheap shopping tour to China that’s aimed at bringing Chinese people living elsewhere, back to visit their homeland. Basically, for an insanely low price, you get transport, accommodation and a tour of a city. The only catch being that you get taken to a few factories/shops aimed at large tour groups that exist solely to pressure you into buying their products. You are obligated to listen to their sales pitch, but theoretically don’t have to buy anything. I randomly decided to follow my parents and 3 of mum’s friends along on a 6 day trip to Guilin (southern China). Of the 6 of us, only mum and SY spoke Mandarin, the rest of us (dad, myself, W and K) hear the language as angry background noise. The tour group had 21 people total, most of which spoke english and a few others that were tagging along and couldn’t understand margarin either. We spent one night in Hong Kong on the way there.
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