Saturday, July 16, 2016
Tour day 9 of 15. Chengdu with Jack. Weather was 70 degrees Fahrenheit and mostly sunny (high of 90). Wake-up call at 4:15 am. Rode to the airport with hotel box lunches: a donut, two danishes, a croissant, two hard-boiled eggs, bottled water. 7:25 am Air China flight 4323 from Chengdu (CTU) to Guilin (KWL). Weather after arrival was 86 degrees Fahrenheit, very humid, and mostly cloudy. Our guide Vincent and driver Mr. Wong met us, and we rode in the bus to the city center. On the drive, we learned that Guilin at half a million persons is in China considered a small town, not a city and that in Guilin people like to cook with beer; beer duck is a notable dish. Tourism and agriculture are the top economies here. We passed limestone hills and caves formed from water. We learned that some people here use tea oil for cooking. I saw a woman driving a moped while carrying a kitchen sink. Since we had an early morning flight and arrived before hotel checkout time, Vincent learned by telephone that our rooms were not yet ready. We alighted the bus and walked along a charming path that had shops on one side and a lake on the other. (I believe this was called Rong Lake and/or Elephant Hill Scenic Area.) We passed an 800-year-old banyan tree, the South City Gate, and the Sun and Moon Pagoda, representing yin and yang. At the hotel Vincent checked us in. Even as we approached our rooms we found that they were still not ready, but housekeeping finished after about 20 minutes. We unpacked some, then met downstairs for a short walk to Handsome Dragon Restaurant for lunch. Highlights include pomelo leaf tisane, deep-fried taro balls coated with a hard sugar coating served with cold and room temperature water for dipping and spinach, pork spare ribs coated with millet, deep-fried carp with ketchup. After lunch we drove to a tea plantation that was formerly a royal garden. We learned how to pick and prepare tea, which was followed by a tea tasting and shopping in the gift shop. We picked our own first- and second-class green tea leaves from live plants and wore traditional tea hats. We returned to the hotel. We had some free time, so I napped while the kids played and watched Korean comedies on television. We walked Renmin Road to dinner at Left Bank Restaurant. Highlights include beef with vegetables on a portable burner, chow mein but with rice noodle instead of wheat noodle, and red bean peach buns. Afterwards we strolled to the hotel while casually shopping. Weather in the evening was 84 degrees Fahrenheit, very humid, and mostly clear. Number of steps walked = 10,988.