Guilin revisited 5th – 7th November

We had to go back to Guilin to catch a train on the 7th of November and so decided to spend another two nights there before we left China. 

We didn’t expect to write a blog during our return but in the two days and nights we spent walking around the lovely parks and along the waterways we saw so many things to write about. 

We stayed back in the hotel opposite the hospital.  Before a walk one morning we went across the road to pick up something for breakfast. We chose some mystery buns (green outside and purple bean inside, thumbs down. Mystery white bun with ‘pork’ mixture inside, thumbs up. We also bought a container of what everyone else in the queue seem to be walking away with. We assumed that as it was yellow it was a cold mango juice or maybe a lassi. Nope! It was hot corn juice! It tasted like liquified corn on the cob minus butter or salt.  It was probably good for patients on a no solids diet, in the hospital opposite, if they couldn’t eat the solids in the little ‘steamer cafe’ . 

Later that day we came across this KFG food stall. Glen said it’s Kentucky Fried Giblets! Lol!

As I sit in another train station I am once again using the time to people watch and write this blog. Around the station people are stood exercising. Swinging their arms and stretching this way and that. Not at all embarrassed or self-conscious in what seems like an inappropriate place. This morning when we left the hotel early to buy our breakfast and lunch to take on the journey, we saw lots of people around the streets exercising again. There was a lady in front of her food stall on her own doing a little dance routine, clearly making it up as she went along, in the way little Eloise does when she dances. They all seem so relaxed and carefree. I worry what people are thinking about me but they seem not to give a fig. How lucky are they!

Talking of figs……I don’t plan these tenuous connections by the way. Lol!

Banyan trees. They are everywhere here in a China. Some are very old and have their long branches propped up with posts. I googled Banyan trees and found an example of one in a place in Thailand we had visited during the second half of our GAP year in 2014/15    “Banyan tree roots cover the head of a buddha in Wat Mahatha, Thailand.” They had a photo of it. We’ve dug ours out here. 

A Banyan is a fig that begins its life as an epiphyte, a plant that grows on another plant, when it’s seed germinates in a crack or crevice of a host tree or edifice. 

Anyway, getting back to me being self-conscious. We were talking the other day about how people in the fields only had flip flops or other inappropriate shoes for tending their crops and chopping wood etc and I said how I noticed that when locals stare at me they seem to look at my shoes a lot. I said, being that they are a good quality pair of walking shoes (shoes were something I didn’t pick up at the charity shop for this trip) they may not have seen such shoes before. Glen disagreed, he said ”I expect they are thinking what big feet you have!” Lol! It’s true, they are all petite. 

There hasn’t been any children with those split trousers in the train station this time, did I tell you about the boy with his bare bottom sat on one of those cold metal cases in the last train station? 

As we sit here people watching Glen just noticed a little toddler slowly walking across the train station dragging what appeared to be a very heavy bag, bless him. Glen said his parents used it as a device to slow him down, so he couldn’t run off! Lol! (You can see the video on Instagram – click the link at the bottom of our home page)

• 

• 

And this (not so little/young) boy was walking along in the park the other day pulling a pink plastic fish along on a string without a care in the world.

• 

• 

Like I keep saying, we’ve spent the last few days walking along the lovely paths along the rivers in the sunshine. It’s so clean and pretty.  Every 100yards or so there would be a person doing Tai Chi or just singing to themselves.

• 

• 

• 

We came across someone having a saxophone lesson, and people playing a variety of other instruments. There were people dancing on their own, exercising or older people just sat listening to music on their phones….. without headphones in. No one uses headphones by the way, in parks, on trains or buses, they prefer to share the music, film or conversation with everyone near them. It means you can always hear some sort of music wherever you are. 

I haven’t got any toilet updates for you (Charlotte and Jane), but I did spot these men’s pance in a window of a department store. We had gone to visit the Seven Star Park. Please don’t ever go there Pat, even if they stop charging the 55 yuan entrance fee. It was a sad, run down place which was in complete contrast to the rest of Guilin. 

Although it meant we walked past this department store window so it was worth visiting! Glen’s first thought was “I wonder what they use to ‘pad out’ the pants” Mine was 1) “was the manakin made to that shape” and  2) “do they come in short, medium, long and extra long!” As apposed to the waist size like in the U.K.! Lol! 

Quickly moving on… (like I did once I took the photo) What sounded like fighter jets had been zooming across the skies in Guilin! Me being a worrier, with a vivid imagination, thought a blinking war had broken out the first night we heard them when we were in bed. They flew over at 11.30pm and continued to fly over for a good hour. We actually saw them in the sky above us one day. They were huge grey aircraft, which were definitely fighter jets. 

Whilst on buses we regularly heard what sounded like six or so smaller jets zooming above us. Andy, can you confirm whether it was just the sound the buses make over certain types of road covering or something? 

They’d put some thought and design into restricting car and bike access along this river walk. They had put a version of our ‘sleeping policemen’ at the end of the path, was it just coincidence that they used pigs!

General observation of Chinese people: No matter how many seats there are around us, behind us or in front of us someone always sits right next to us! What’s that about!? Safety in numbers?  In the time I’ve been writing this blog two people have come to sit by me when Glen has gone for a wander. There are plenty of seats near by so why sit right next to me? 

One group of locals stood in the middle of the station with sacks of this and that, and their 10 litre Dulux paint drums as we call them, with wire handles. (Some people tend to use them instead of a bag.) One of them came and put his huge sack of rice, or whatever he had in there, right next to my bags! You could have had a game of five aside football in front of me but no he stood all but touching me with his elbow! Anyway, after a while he put his bags on either end of a ‘stick’ and carried his heavy possessions over his shoulder towards the platform in a way that put me in mind of Dick Whittington. I bet he will sit and write a blog about how the white folk struggle by carrying things on their back, over their arm or by dragging it along on small wheels…… with those huge feet! Chuckle.

Oh and something we’ve learnt here in China is that Chrysanthemums, (a flower I think of as British) is native to Asia with most species originating from East Asia and the center of diversity is in China. I never knew that! They seemed to be ‘celebrating’ them in one area of China we visited. The whole park was full of them and temporary potted displays and everyone was taking photos of them.