Guilin

We were really surprised how cold it ended up being when we arrived in Guilin. I figured after a 24 hr ride due south, it should warm up a little bit. Even though it was so cold, Guilin was still pretty beautiful, it had a lot more green in the city, something I miss in the ShiJZ. There were trees lining most of the streets and lots of parks were you could get away from the rush. At the first restaurant we stopped at for lunch we tried a local staple that consisted of rice (of course) with spices, veggies, and meat all cooked together in a clay pot.



It was really tasty and that was one of our favorites in Guilin. Traveling in China is neat because every area will have similar kinds of foods but they will also have local foods that will differ a little bit. For example, every city I have been in has its own type of breakfast and lunch street food. In Xi'an it was spicy shredded meat in a steamed bread sandwich, in Guilin it was pickled cabbage stuff and fried dough wrapped in an egg and batter mixture. Obviously there were other things, but you couldn't walk a minute or two without seeing a vendor selling these favorites. The first two days we were in Guilin, we took it pretty easy and rested a lot. The second day we took a little trip to see a famous landmark called Elephant Trunk Hill. ( you can see why from the picture)



We climbed around the top for a while and got a great view looking over the city. What was really neat about the city (and I tried to show with the picture) was how the city was just kind of
built around the mountains.