My Very First Blog

Last year I spent 10 days in Guilin, China. When I came back, I blogged about my travels in Guilin in a jumbled up manner. I am sure some of you are confused as I did not blog in chronological order.

It took me more than one year to complete blogging about my Guilin trip. In fact, there is still one or two more posts to go before I can safely say that I have wrapped it all up haha!

Some of you had even asked me why after one year of blogging about the trip, I was still posting about Day 1. LOL!

So here is my 10 days in Guilin in chronological order.

Day 1
My First Day In China
Backstreet Youth Hostel
My First Meal In Guilin
The Elephant Trunk Hill
A Visit To Central Square In Guilin
I Ate Horse Meat At Hao Da Ma
My Two Rivers Four Lakes Night Cruise

Day 2
Rice Noodles Breakfast At Zheng Yang Pedestrian Street
My Visit To Daxu Ancient Town (Part 1)
My Visit To Daxu Ancient Town (Part 2)
My Visit To Daxu Ancient Town (Part 3)
My Visit To Maozhou Island
I Saw Jay Chou At Guilin Night Market!

Day 3
My Trip To Longji Rice Terraces (Part 1)
My Trip To Longji Rice Terraces (Part 2)
My Trip To Longji Rice Terraces (Part 3)
My Trip To Longji Rice Terraces (Part 4)

Day 4
My Trip To Longji Rice Terraces (Part 5)
My Trip To Longji Rice Terraces (Part 6)
Climbing Up Solitary Beauty Peak
The Twin Pagodas Of Shan Lake

Day 5
My Very First Li River Cruise (Part 1)
My Very First Li River Cruise (Part 2)
Crappy China Tour Company
Jian Shan Temple
The Big Banyan Tree
How We Were Short Changed On Moon Hill
Ju Long Tan Cave
Did We Pay The Tour Company?
Xi Jie Youth Hostel
A Walk Along West Street

Day 6
My Yulong River Rafting Adventure (Part 1)
My Yulong River Rafting Adventure (Part 2)
My Yulong River Rafting Adventure (Part 3)
Mei You Cafe
I Was Impressed By Impression Liu Sanjie

Day 7
Lost In Xingping (Part 1)
Lost In Xingping (Part 2)
Lost In Xingping (Part 3)
Lost In Xingping (Part 4)

Day 8
Lost In Xingping (Part 5)
My Meals At Mickey Mao's

Day 9
What Happened On The 9th Day
Seven Stars Park (Coming Soon)

Day 10
My Last Day In Guilin (Coming Soon)

Now there is a reason why I put up all my Guilin posts here. I am running a contest. There are FOUR contests here. You may join either one, or two, or three, or all four contests!!

CONTEST #1
This is the easiest. Be the first commenter on this post and you are the winner of a souvenir from Bangkok!

CONTEST #2
This is not too difficult either if you like spamming comments, LOL!! Be the person with the most comments and you are the winner of a souvenir from Bangkok!

Rules: Each comment must not be less than 8 words.
Closing Date: 10th November 2010, 11.59pm sharp.

CONTEST #3
This is a little harder, but the prize is better. Write a short post on your blog about why you would love to visit Guilin (if you have not visited before) OR why you love Guilin (if you have visited before) and link back to this post. The post which I like best will win! I will keep the prize a secret for the moment.

Closing Date: 14h November 2010

CONTEST #4
This one is not too tough either if you know where to look for the answers! They are all found in the numerous Guilin travel posts on this blog! (which is why I have listed them out here for you)

The first person to answer all the 5 questions below correctly will win a prize which shall remain a secret for the time being.

Question 1: Where did I and my travel partners stay on our 4th night in Guilin?
Question 2: Where during my trip did I see live crabs being fried alive?
Question 3: How many horses I saw during my Li River Cruise?
Question 4: On which day of my Guilin trip I met with an accident?
Question 5: Did I and my travel partners pay the tour company in the end?

Rules: The answers to all 5 questions must be in one comment.

Take note that you can be a multiple winner ie. if you win Contest #1, that will not stop you from winning Contest #2, #3 and #4! Good luck and Have Fun!! : D

My long running Guilin travel posts will be coming to an end soon. Many of you may be heaving a sigh of relief and I don't blame you haha! But I have to thank all of you readers for sticking with me and religiously following my Guilin travels that spanned 10 days but incredibly took me more than one year to complete blogging about it!

Today I am going to take you to my Day 6 in Guilin where I was in Yangshuo to attend one of the most amazing live performances in the world that I have ever seen! Yes, it's the Impression Liu Sanjie show!

Just to reflect a little on what my travel partner Jam, his friend and I did on Day 6, we went for the amazing Yulong River Rafting in the morning, came back in the afternoon for some rest, then went out for dinner at Mei You Cafe before going for the Impression Liu Sanjie show.

We were offered VIP tickets at 238 yuan each which include transport to the show and back by the boss of Xi Jie Youth Hostel where we stayed. It was pretty reasonable so we accepted the offer.



Impression Liu Sanjie is performed at the Li River Landscape Theatre, one of the first of its kind in the world, located at the junction of the Li River and Tianjiahe River, facing Shutong Hill across the water. Yes, it is the biggest landscape theatre in the world with natural settings of river and mountain karsts as the background!



When I was first entered the seating area, I was amazed by the beautiful landscape! This must be the first time I have ever seen a stage built on a river with real nature as the backdrop. Honestly, I was more than impressed. I was in awe!



It was still early and there many empty seats but not for long!

The show started punctually at 8pm which kind of surprised me.



Due to the darkness, I am afraid I could not take very good photos to show here. Besides, my camera did not have powerful zoom features and I could not magnify the performers on stage. These were the best I could come out with.



Can you see the fishermen pulling the red long cloths to symbolise fishing nets?

Impression Liu Sanjie is based on the famous movie "Liu Sanjie" produced in 1961. Liu Sanjie or Third Sister Liu is actually a woman from the Zhuang minority group who was both beautiful and possessed a good singing voice.

But in this Impression Liu Sanjie, it was more about a series of impressions derived from the daily life of the people living around Li River rather than following the specific details of the story as depicted in the movie.

It started with the Red Impression which represents folk songs.



Then came the Green Impression which represents homeland. After that, was the Golden Impression which represents lights on fishing boats. Two more impressions came after that, namely the Blue Impression to represent love songs, and Silver Impression to represent grand ceremony as a closing to the show.

It's just too bad I could not take good quality pictures here so I am not able to show you the images of each impression of different colours. Besides, I myself got mixed up as to which scene was for which impression, so well.....!



The stage was turned into one huge grand performance with over 600 performers! There is only one word to describe it - Awesome!!



During the Blue Impression, these female performers (below) were seen shedding off their clothes. Really, no kidding!! But were they really naked? I don't know! What do you think?



The Silver Impression was quite unique and outstanding. The performers came out dressed in clothes with lights! The lights would change colour and at certain point, some of the performers switched off their lights creating the impression that they had disappeared!

This display of lights on the performers' clothes created patterns of lights that were both a marvel and delight to watch!!



The roughly 70-minute show was one of the grandest and most impressive live performances I have ever seen in my life! And it sort of reminded me of the grandness of The 2008 Beijing Olympics opening and closing ceremonies!!

Which is not surprising, since Impression Liu Sanjie was directed by none other than the famous Chinese director, Zhang Yimou, who also directed the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening and closing ceremonies.

If you ever visit Yangshuo, don't ever miss this show. I highly recommend it!

On my way out after the show, I caught sight of this. No Burning? Haha!!

Remember my Two Rivers Four Lakes Night Cruise on my first night in Guilin? I spotted the famous Twin Pagodas while on the cruise and was so mesmerized by them that I had wanted to take more photos of them?

On my fourth night in Guilin, after returning from the Jingjiang Princes' City, I had that chance again. Jam, his friend and I went for a walk after dinner at the park near Shan Lake and we saw the Twin Pagodas again.

But first, let me blogged about our dinner. We ate at Xi Shui Cui Yu Xuan, the same restaurant we had lunch on our first day in Guilin.

We had glass noodles.



Snails.



Can't see those snails clearly? Let me magnify for you.



I actually did not know how to eat them. Jam taught me. I think snails were common and a popular dish in Guilin!

We rounded up the dinner with fish!



Noticed all those nuts? Seemed to me that Guilin people like to put nuts in their fish and their rice noodles!

After dinner, we went for a walk at the park facing Shan Lake.

At first we wanted to visit that famous Guilin Lijiang Waterfall Hotel to watch the man-made waterfall that made it into the Guiness Book Of Records. Unfortunately, we were told that the waterfall was out of order!

So we went to the park instead and had a leisurely walk. Here, we saw the magnificent Twin Pagodas again!



The Twin Pagodas which are famous landmarks in the city of Guilin, consists of the Sun and the Moon Pagodas.

The 9-storied Sun Pagoda, which is the higher of the two, is about 41 metres tall, and is lighted in bright yellowish gold. It is said to be made of solid bronze and may well be the tallest bronze pagoda in the world.

The 7-storied Moon Pagoda, on the other hand, is about 35 metres tall, is lighted in blue and is made of wood and glazed tiles.



The Twin Pagodas are located at the centre of the lake. There is a bridge to reach the Moon Pagoda but unfortunately we did not know about that! So we did not go up that Pagoda but instead watched it from afar! How I regretted it!

I also learnt that both the pagodas are connected by an underwater tunnel! How marvellous! So the only way to reach the Sun Pagoda is via the tunnel from the Moon Pagoda. If only we knew about that!!

Oh well, no point regretting now. If I ever go Guilin again, I will definitely make it a point to visit the magnificent Twin Pagodas!

After returning from Longji Rice Terraces, Jam, his friend and I took a short rest then we headed out to Jingjiang Princes' City (靖江王城).

This place was not very far away from the Guilin Backstreet International Youth Hostel where we were staying for the night.

The entrance to the Jingjiang Princes' City was through a tunnel flanked by two lion statues.



We walked into the tunnel.



Coming out on the other side, we saw the front gate of the Jingjiang Princes' City.



There was a crowd there. I do not like crowds but I guess there was nothing we could do. It was after all, a tourist attraction. We bought tickets which were priced at 50 yuan per person.



Jingjiang Princes' City was formerly the home to 14 Jingjiang princes from 12 generations. It is also regarded as the birthplace of the entire Guilin city. During the Ming Dynasty it was a forbidden city, but at the time of Qing Dynasty, it was converted into the Guangxi Examination Hall, where many top national scholars emerged.

As we entered the gate, we saw a few guides and followed one of them. She led us to a few interesting places inside the Scenic Area. We were first brought to look at a Couple Tree.



It was actually a tree growing on top of another tree! And the weird thing about this tree was that it was hollow inside!



This is a signboard showing us directions.



Next, the guide brought us to see the former residence of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. This is the monument in memory of Dr. Sun.



In the period of the Republic of China, Dr. Sun Yat-sen made Princes' City his headquarter for his North Expedition.

There was a pool nearby but I did not take any pictures. There was also a pavilion which I like, situated at the side of the pool.



After that, we were brought to the Examination Hall.



I even experienced taking an exam in there! Each "candidate" was housed in a cubicle complete with a Chinese brush (mao bi), ink and test paper . It was fun!



Of course I did not write or do anything since I know very little Mandarin so I just sat there and enjoyed the feeling of how it must be like taking an exam in China during those ancient times!

After leaving the Examination Hall, we were brought to a cave called Peace Cave (太平岩). Oh! I could not take a proper picture of the Peace Cave entrance as there were people blocking. This was the best I could do.



The door was opened for us and we went into the cave which was located on the west foot of Solitary Beauty Peak. By the way, it is a natural cave and not man-made. It was in this cave that the Jingjiang Princes worshipped Tai Sui generals.

Unfortunately, I could not take any pictures inside the cave as it was just too dark!

Lastly, the guide brought us to the foot of Solitary Beauty Peak. It's the only peak in the Jingjiang Princes' City thus the use of the name "solitary".



The four characters 南天一柱 on the rock in the photo above literally means "A Pillar Under Southern Sky".

We decided to climb up the 306 stone steps to reach the top of the peak. Certain parts were quite steep and proved to be quite challenging.



However, our climb was definitely worth it as once we reached the top, we were rewarded with a panoramic view of Guilin City!



Oh, I could even see a church!



We spent some time up here taking photos.



After enjoying the scenery for some time, we made our way back down.



It was indeed an interesting visit and if you are a first time visitor to Guilin, this is one place you must not miss!

Continued from Part 5

This is the Final Part of my 6-part Trip to Longji Rice Terraces.

After enjoying the breathtaking views of the rice terraces from the "Home To Photographers" Hotel, we began our descend back to Dazhai where we stayed.

Along the way down led by Da Jie, we continued to enjoy the scenery and took lots of photos.



Most of the landscape photos here can be clicked for larger wallpaper size. Try it!



I don't know about you but I just love this photo below.



It's nice to walk on those slab stones pathway looking over the vast mountains and terraced rice fields and not knowing exactly where the path leads to.



It was only about 8am when we hiked down the terraced hills. On my usual working day, I would probably be just waking up in my bed! Haha!



On our way down, we came across a number of horses carrying goods on their backs going uphill.



Apparently, these horses were important mode of transportation for carrying goods up and down the hill. Each household here actually owns a horse! And each horse costs about 3,000 yuan.



I also learnt from Da Jie that they only harvest once a year in the month of September. Each household would get about 6,000 kilograms of rice. All the rice is for self consumption and the remaining is used to feed livestock.



Soon, we passed by Tiantou Village again. I remember the sky was still dark when we were at this spot on our way up earlier that morning.



This is Da Jie far ahead as usual and patiently waiting for us as we took our own sweet time to snap photos of the amazingly magnificent view!



We had planned to leave Dazhai and return to Guilin at noon. But first, we had to fill our stomachs with food!



So once we reached our hotel in Dazhai, we took a rest, then went up to our rooms to shower and pack before going back down to have an early lunch.

These were what we ate.


Clockwise from the top right : cured meat, yam, spicy bean curd and a bowl of soup.

After the meal, Da Jie brought us out of the village and with heavy hearts, it was time to bade farewell.



This had been such an enjoyable trip that now looking back at my 10 days in Guilin, I would dare say this is one of the most, if not the most interesting places to visit!

Coming Up Next : My Visit To Solitary Peak In Guilin