Shanghai to Guilin
The train ride to Guilin was the scariest ride we have taken so far.
The train cars seemed to have no suspension between them and jolted
very violently before and after stops and at random times during the
trip. We shared the compartment with grandma and later, a younger girl
about our age. I took the top bunk, which made it very terrifying when
the train shook suddenly and I tended to only come down when the train
was stopped. It felt like our car was hitting the car in front of us
and then getting smashed behind by the following car. Amazingly none
of my stuff ever fell out of the shelves nor did I from the bunk.
We pulled into Guilin in a little bit late, ~3pm, and were met by
Julie. She helped us to the Juang Jing Lou Holiday Hotel (?) near the
government center. This hotel Scotty had found and booked on his own
instead of via the travel agency. When we got there we discovered that
we had made the reservation for the wrong day. Fortunately one room
remained, the luxury suite. We booked it for 700Y ($100 US) which is
over a 60% discount from the listed price. It was an extremely nice
room with the living room overlooking the lake and a very nice
bathroom with dual shower heads (Scotty's dream) and a bidet.
After a wonderful shower, we headed out to find dinner. Scotty had a
craving for pizza so we searched for the nearest Pizza Hut online. We
walked along the lake front and then up Zhongshan Lu a major street
about 5 minutes walk from the hotel. We managed to find the Pizza Hut
via the red hat symbol (Pizza Hut has a very long name in Chinese
characters, none of which I can read.) The Pizza Hut is actually a
very nice sit down restaurant, at least the one we went to, offering a
much larger menu than in the US (you can get full dishes here like
stew or fried rice). The pizzas, on the other hand, were much smaller.
We got the largest pizza, supposedly serving 4-5 people, that is a
little smaller than a medium size pizza in the US with about 8 slices.
Then we met with Julie for a night boat tour on the lake. Guilin had
spent a lot of money improving the water way, recreating bridges from
around the world (including the Golden Gate Bridge) and lighting them
up at night. It was a beautiful tour and well worth the 180Y.
Guilin is actually one of my favorite cities. I had heard so much bad
rap about Guilin being a dirty, busy city full of con-artists and
thieves. Though Julie did warn us to watch our bags, I didn't feel
threatened or endangered in any way. It was also one of the first
times we were able to walk down a street unmolested by shopkeepers. It
was rather refreshing. The lake area is very pretty and clean and
reminded us a European city. I can't speak, however, for the rest of
the city since we haven't had the time to do more exploring. At first
glance though, Guilin doesn't seem to be such a terrible place to
visit and I believe it definitely warrants a return.
- Julia