Spring Festival - Guilin Day 4: Reed Flute Cave and Little Italian
This one was a bit complicated, and confusing to get to and find. It was the only thing I wanted to see on the opposite side of the city from my hostel. I got the directions off of google maps. There were three buses that go that way 3, 203, and 25, according to Google. The number three bus had the least amount of walking so I took that one.
I needed to get the bus at the Cross Roads (十字街) stop on West Jiefang lu (解放西路). I had accidently crossed East Jiefang lu earlier and at the intersection of Zhongshanzhong lu (中山中路) I needed to go diagonally across the street to be on the correct side of the road. At these big intersections in Guilin there are underpasses but every time before I’ve seen people cross above ground. But since I was in no hurry, I decided to check it out. The underpass was also a mall, and it was very confusing since I moved diagonally across and walked what felt longer then the intersection and went up onto West Jiefang lu although the sign was only in Chinese. I turned to my left at the top of the stairs and started to walk down the street only to see that I was walking down Zhongshanzhong lu! So I turned back and walked as if I had just gone straight from the stairs down West Jiefang lu, but I was still on the wrong side of the street. So I crossed over and when I finally saw a bus stop for the number 3 bus I was at the Art Gallery and had walked past the Cross Roads stop! My directions said to go in the direction of长海五村 and get off at飞鸾桥, then walk. I couldn’t get clearer walking directions but since there were plenty of road signs pointing to attractions from what I had seen I figured it would be fine. I however misread the directions I wrote down and thought I was going to 长海五村 which was the last stop, which I felt made things simpler. Somewhere around the 芦笛岩 stop some elderly lady was talking to me and I couldn’t understand her. There was a ticker that announced the next stop and I was curious about芦笛岩 since I knew that 岩 (yan2) is cave, but the entire area is just mountains and caves, also I thought that the second character was made up of the characters 竹 (zhu2 bamboo) the top part and 田 (tian2 field) so I thought it was the something bamboo field cave. I also knew my stop didn’t include the character for cave.
When I got off the bus I was in the middle of a residential area, in the middle of nowhere, with no signs. I tried to use Google maps on my phone to get the walking directions. But before it loaded a man asked me in English where I wanted to go. I pointed to where it said the Reed Flute Cave on the map (which just has an arrow pointing that it is off the map) in English and Chinese. The man looked on his phone and said I needed to go back three stops to芦笛岩 (lu2di2yan2) which if you look on the bus line map was Reed Flute Cave (it says it in small print under the characters). At which point I decided that bamboo fields could probably mean ‘reeds’. So I thanked the nice people and got back on the bus.
I was dropped off in front of a lake. There was a path on the right and a path straight ahead. The path straight ahead was lined with coloured flags and had a sign that said Reed Flute Cave. So I went there. I found a building that said芦笛岩 in fancy script over the door but it was clearly closed up. I looked around and couldn’t see anything the back of the building wasn’t open either. There were two pates off to the left I first went to the one that was closest to the right. There were wooden signs that pointed down the road for a couple different villages and then the caves back the way I came at 50 m. I decided that must mean the other path. The signs at that path included a map of the villages and a sign saying that the caves were 50 m back the way I came. Frustrated I thought they were pointing at the closed building that was about 15 m away. So I stood by the sign that advertised the caves with an arrow pointing towards the building and/or the two paths and waited for someone to come by and ask them where to go.
A man with his grandchild came by and pointed to the mountain behind the lake that the other path at the bus stop led to. So I headed back to the bus stop, but the man stopped me and told me to go around the 芦笛岩 building. This led me on a bridge that went over the lake and then a little ways into the trees at the base of the mountains. When a lady tried to sell me cave postcards I asked her where they were and she pointed to a big modern looking building across the street!
So if you don’t miss your bus stop, the caves are on the same side of the road that you get off of a little ways up the hill. Ignore the bright flags and signs with arrows they lie!
When you get to the building it is clean, shiny and new. There are signs in English and everything. You walk passed the visitors waiting area and buy your ticket for 90 RMB the seemingly only place in Guilin that hasn’t increased in price since my Lonely Planet came out (May 2011). There were a few people standing or sitting around chatting, it took me a second to see the entryway which was at the end of a railing that went the length of the area. There was a man in there looking at the wall of pictures of famous people that visited the caves and not acting as if he was in line (which there was none) for the caves. A woman entered from the other end also looking at the pictures. These two blocked my way for a bit but I scooted around them and showed the lady my ticket. She told me ‘5 minutes’.
So I waited and slowly a queue formed behind me with the man right behind me. It was soon obvious that it was a by tour only especially when the man told the guy behind him that the foreigner cut him in line. There is nothing in English at least that says by tour only, he didn’t try to stop me from passing him, and he was still second in line so I didn’t feel bad, especially when they announced the tour and about 20 more people entered the line.
The tour guide speaks Chinese (obviously) but the features that were named also had the signs in English the first one was: The morning sunrise over the lion jungle. I didn’t see the lion until the lights changed colour. The sign were all in fancy green neon lights, which were hard to read in general and horrible to take pictures of. So I don’t remember the name of the next one. There was Mushroom Hill next to a Snowman. After that was something along the lines of ‘a harvest of vegetables’ where you could see what looked like broccoli, and a type of lettuce. The next one I didn’t understand: A Boxwood Carving. There was: Singing Birds and Fragrant flowers where the white lighted parts are the birds and the red bit is the flower. The next one was a great column whose sign was so far away I couldn’t read it at all. Cloudy Mountains Outside The Window Curtain was the last one before we paused briefly for photos.
There was a brightly coloured section of cave that was set up to take those photos you have to pay for. The guy spoke wicked fast, but I got that you would get a free keychain like at Sanxingdui. They handed out an empty keychain and a slip that said which photo was yours to collect at the end. So I got in line, to get my picture next to a fake pearl on a cave feature. The tour guide continued on before everyone finished getting their pictures taken. This was the next named feature and the green area of that, which I liked the best, the lights were turned out before I could read the name.
Then projected on the flat part of the ceiling was a video. It started with a dragon that turned to stone and became the earth and then dinosaurs, volcanoes/meteorites, then ice age and mammoths, then rains and bodies of water, then green-which all contributed to the creation of the caves. Then our attention was directed over to this area, where a standing screen played a ballet piece that reflected in the water below (no clue why). Then there was another photo op with the blue background. The tour guide waited this time and as we were leaving the area another nice column was highlighted.
The next one I didn’t understand at all: The Viewing of Guilin at a distance I suppose that it sort of looks like mountains. There was a crevice which you could pay 5 RMB to view the sign (that you can see a bit of in the photo) showed tortoise shells that the Chinese used to divine with. So it might be to get your fortune read, I’m not sure. The sign said 伍元 instead of 五元 (five yuan/ 5 RMB) which I can never remember what 伍 means exactly. According to my dictionary it is used for cheques and important things so there is no confusion. It is how it is written on the 5 jiao bill (which is half of 1 RMB), but the 1 jiao bill (which is 1/10th of 1 RMB) has the pinyin for 1 but the character is crazy and not close to the usual one that is used to show 1. But at the time, I skipped the crevice, not sure of what was going on.
The next one was: Listening to Flute Music in a Secluded Place, and they did have flute music playing. Then there was: A Idyllic Fairyland with changing colours, which had my favourite cave feature the small flat sheet at an angle that I cannot remember the name of. Next before I could see the feature our guide started singing all I could see was red and blue lights and green lasers dancing. When I got up there I understood the singing as I was looking at: A Stage Curtain.
This next part had no name, but the guide stopped and talked about it, what this part looked like (I thought insect) seemed to change when the light did (more person like), which was cool.
The last feature of the cave is A Lion Seeing off Guests. Which I thought was cute since it began and ended with Lions.
You are let out at what I believe is the left side of the building that you entered into. Right in front is where you pick up the photos. They are 20 RMB a piece. I liked the way that I looked in the first photo (with the pearl) but it looked fake, the background of the second photo was much better but there was glare on my glasses. I debated for a bit and decided against either. I tried to put the pictures in the keychain but there is nothing to hold them in place. I didn’t ask them about it, for a few reasons the lighting wasn’t the best so I could have just missed it, they might only put it in if you buy the big photo, and I don’t know how to say: ‘how to do this?’ all I could say that would sort of be there are: ‘I don’t understand this’ or ‘this is no good’ and as it is a free keychain I felt that that would have fallen flat. In the end I found the front piece in the camera case I had put the keychain in initially when packing so the plastic bag the keychain was in must not have been sealed when I got it, still doesn’t stay together well.
To the left is a gift shop and behind the photo pick up was a path to the mountain. I went through the gift shop and over an overpass to the mountain on the other side of the road with the lake and everything. It was only noon and I wasn’t hungry so I climbed up the mountain. I found Half-Hill Pavilion (and found that the rest of the path up was blocked so I went down the path on the other side. I found the lady who tried to sell me post cards before as I had walked away she had said two packs for 10 RMB. I just wanted the cave ones, I looked at them liked them and asked how much she said ‘si kuai’ which is 4 RMB but as I leaned in Sichuan some people cannot pronounce ‘shi’ (10) correctly and as a pack of 10 postcards is usually 10 RMB I gave her a ten. She sort of looked at me confused and started to show me more cards, and it sounded like she was saying two for ten. So I looked at river one said okay but then she wanted another ten. And I really didn’t want the cards so I said no, and tried to leave. She followed me for a bit showed me a landscape book pointed out that it was 70 RMB but she was selling it for 20 RMB and then she threw in a pack of free post cards and then a second pack I said no, and took the path that was to the right when I had gotten off of the bus to get back to the bus stop.
I wanted to get off at the Cross Roads (十字街) stop just to see where it was and counted 15 stops until then. The ticker on the bus wasn’t working and the signs outside at the bus stop were too small to see from the bus most of the time. So I counted. Part way through the ticker and a map of the line with lights that indicated where you were started working. So I knitted and waited. My stop I counted as 13. When we left the Art Gallery stop I went to get up and the lady sitting next to me got up as well. Both the ticker and the map said that the next stop was the Art Gallery I was confused. But only a few people had gotten off and nobody got on at the previous stop and we were at a standstill so I thought he had let people off at a non-designated stop. About 30 metres from the stop he let people off. About 10 metres from the stop he let people on and this one guy off. When we were finally at the stop I saw that it was the Cross Roads stop! He did not let me off. Both the ticker and the map skipped the Cross Roads stop and the bus turned down south Zhongshanzhong lu which is away from where I was going and stopped two blocks down where I got off and decided to walk.
It was a good thing though. I saw a bakery and decided to look I got a doughnut, strawberry cake (that tasted a bit like Neapolitan ice cream), and bubble tea. I then found a Pizza Hut on the southwest corner of Zhongshanzhong lu and Sanduo lu, which is interesting because Dean said that Pizza Hut only goes to Province Capitals and didn’t want to go to Dongying, and Guilin only has a population of 700000 less than half of Dongying-though it is more of a tourist place.
I wanted to walk up Zhongshanzhong lu to go to the bank so I could be sure I had enough money to get home and to last me through the Spring Festival shut down. I originally planned on getting just enough to get from the Beijing Airport to the bus station and the bus station to Dongying. But as I walked I decided to just take out enough that it would last me a while, about what I spend in a month knowing that with things shutdown for Spring Festival I would probably be eating a lot of Pizza Hut and McDonalds. The strange thing was when I went to the Bank of China and took out money from my Bank of China account it charged me a 10 RMB fee! I don’t know if it was a separate province fee (unfair! It is the same bank) or a you took the same amount of money out three days ago from the same atm fee (I had the unexpected cost of the Leshan hotel, so I only had 300 RMB with me after I paid for the Guilin hostel and the Solitary Beauty Peak was 130 RMB!). I have never seen an ATM fee even when I have been forced to use a non-Bank of China ATM. I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen since my account always says I have an odd amount of change like .68 when I have only put whole notes into the account and China runs strictly on the 0.1 cent instead of the 0.01 cent like the US. So some fluctuation in my account I can never account for, but that was the first time I saw it announced.
I only had 38 RMB on my phone and right next to my hostel was a China Telecom. The guy thought I was an idiot. I said two numbers and he said ‘no China Mobile’ I said ‘no it is China Telecom’ and when I said the third number he agreed with me. He decided he didn’t like my pronunciation of numbers so he had me write it down (I forgot one number) and after him saying no a couple times he said to check it, I did fixed the number and then he said no because it was a different province! Said something else probably directions to get a phone card like I had to get in Xian and I left. I asked the hostel people so I could get better directions but they couldn’t tell me. It took them a minute to understand that I live in Shandong. I gave up and the girl asked if my parents were in Shandong province and I said no I was a teacher. I asked Tom how he put money on my phone for me while he was in Shenzhen and I was in Xian and he said I needed to connect my bank card to my WeChat and do it like that.
When I got back to my room I looked up the Chinese for Reed Flute Cave 芦笛岩 (lu2di2yan2) and see if my guess was right. Firstly the second character wasn’t bamboo field what I thought was field: 田was really 由 (you2 which means: to pass through); so to pass through bamboo = flute (because they made flutes from bamboo). So 芦 is Reed but the traditional, which was on my map and what I would have been looking for is: 籚. Can you see how I wouldn’t connect the two so quickly? Especially when the print was small. Either way it was a fun adventure and I got done almost everything I needed to.
I lazed about in the afternoon writing about my hectic adventure figuring since it was my last night that I would eat in the Hotel restaurant drink imported beer. I also entertained the idea of walking down to the Sun and Moon pagoda and seeing it at night. That all depended on when I had to get a taxi to go to the airport.
I went down to the front desk at about 18:00 ready for an adventure, if I had the time and asked about the taxi. The sign above the front desk said that it was a 110 RMB taxi ride and I needed to figure it all out since my flight was at 11:30 on Wednesday. They said since my flight wasn’t too early or too late I could take a taxi to the CAAC hotel and the shuttle back to the airport. They told me the taxi was about 15 RMB which made me feel better about paying 20 RMB to get to the hotel. They said I had to leave about 8:00-:30 in the morning.
I checked the hotel restaurant for the sign that said when they stopped serving food. But I couldn’t find it; I remembered it as 21:00 and called it good enough. I left at 18:20 for the Sun and Moon Twin Pagodas.
According to Lonely Planet the Sun Pagoda is made of copper and is the tallest in the world. There is also an underwater bridge that connects them and that the sun pagoda is the only pagoda that has a lift; though the pagoda at Dujiangyan Irrigation System in Chengdu had one as well.
It took me 20 minutes to walk there and seeing people sitting in Little Italian (another restaurant and café suggested by Lonely Planet) thought that that may be a better place to eat after. I was finally able to get a picture of the odd platform that I saw the first time at the edge of the lake without any people on it.
When I first got there I was immediately ambushed by three Chinese girls to take a picture with them. By the time I could take my own pictures the moon pogoda was putting on a rainbow light show, where each tier lit up in colours (other than white). I even got it when the tiers where changing colour vertically. At first I was annoyed because I wanted the Sun and Moon Pagodas to look reminiscent of their namesakes. I noticed that the roof of the Sun Pagoda was the only part that changed colour and waited until the colours seemed more sun and moon to me. The more I watched the more I realised that the light show was interesting and unique. The colour of the roof on the Sun Pagoda changed rapidly usually in a bottom up fashion, sometimes top to bottom. While the Moon Pagoda roof changed colour much slower in a right to left fashion where the new colour would slowly darken and then change: green to teal, blue to almost purple (which never came out on camera), then red to a dark pink colour. I waited for the rainbow light show on the Moon Pagoda to start again but after 20 minutes I decided to give up. I did get a few panorama shots of the lake, the other lighted buildings and then a shot of the building behind the Pagodas when it turned its lights on.
Across the street there were bamboo trees that grew between the railing and the strand before the river. I think they are there to block the view of the Elephant Trunk Hill. They were also lit up and it played music so I made a video (which may not play).
After that I walked up to Little Italian and flipped through their menu that they had outside. I decided on Baked Eggplant and Cheese and a Hefeweissbier Dunkel, the picture of the ‘banana split’ looked like a banana crepe with chocolate, but I didn’t try it. I was the only one there but it didn’t matter the food was great! The Eggplant and Cheese was Eggplant Parmesan without pasta or breading on the eggplant. It was still really good. The portion was small but as long as you aren’t really hungry you should be fine. Above my table was a bookshelf the paperbacks there were mostly in German and English and mostly fiction a copy of the Hunger Games: Catching Fire was there and they were all well-read, when I got up to pay I saw another bookshelf with Chinese books and a few travel books about China and this, which I want a copy of. The music was good mostly ‘slow dance songs’ from high school dances the classics nothing from the 21st century. I didn’t hear Stairway to Heaven but I did hear Simon and Garfunkel’s A Bridge over Troubled Water. I would definitely recommend it.
I almost missed the turn for the hostel since I was looking at the river. When I got back I was flipping through their Guilin tour book to find the information about the Pagodas. I could have sworn that I read when they were built in it. But I couldn’t find it, the hostel workers suggested lonely planet and I looked at their 2009 copy which gave the same information as mine. I did notice in their tour book that I was correct in the guess that rice noodles were a specialty of Guilin and so was Osmanthus tea.
I needed to get the bus at the Cross Roads (十字街) stop on West Jiefang lu (解放西路). I had accidently crossed East Jiefang lu earlier and at the intersection of Zhongshanzhong lu (中山中路) I needed to go diagonally across the street to be on the correct side of the road. At these big intersections in Guilin there are underpasses but every time before I’ve seen people cross above ground. But since I was in no hurry, I decided to check it out. The underpass was also a mall, and it was very confusing since I moved diagonally across and walked what felt longer then the intersection and went up onto West Jiefang lu although the sign was only in Chinese. I turned to my left at the top of the stairs and started to walk down the street only to see that I was walking down Zhongshanzhong lu! So I turned back and walked as if I had just gone straight from the stairs down West Jiefang lu, but I was still on the wrong side of the street. So I crossed over and when I finally saw a bus stop for the number 3 bus I was at the Art Gallery and had walked past the Cross Roads stop! My directions said to go in the direction of长海五村 and get off at飞鸾桥, then walk. I couldn’t get clearer walking directions but since there were plenty of road signs pointing to attractions from what I had seen I figured it would be fine. I however misread the directions I wrote down and thought I was going to 长海五村 which was the last stop, which I felt made things simpler. Somewhere around the 芦笛岩 stop some elderly lady was talking to me and I couldn’t understand her. There was a ticker that announced the next stop and I was curious about芦笛岩 since I knew that 岩 (yan2) is cave, but the entire area is just mountains and caves, also I thought that the second character was made up of the characters 竹 (zhu2 bamboo) the top part and 田 (tian2 field) so I thought it was the something bamboo field cave. I also knew my stop didn’t include the character for cave.
When I got off the bus I was in the middle of a residential area, in the middle of nowhere, with no signs. I tried to use Google maps on my phone to get the walking directions. But before it loaded a man asked me in English where I wanted to go. I pointed to where it said the Reed Flute Cave on the map (which just has an arrow pointing that it is off the map) in English and Chinese. The man looked on his phone and said I needed to go back three stops to芦笛岩 (lu2di2yan2) which if you look on the bus line map was Reed Flute Cave (it says it in small print under the characters). At which point I decided that bamboo fields could probably mean ‘reeds’. So I thanked the nice people and got back on the bus.
I was dropped off in front of a lake. There was a path on the right and a path straight ahead. The path straight ahead was lined with coloured flags and had a sign that said Reed Flute Cave. So I went there. I found a building that said芦笛岩 in fancy script over the door but it was clearly closed up. I looked around and couldn’t see anything the back of the building wasn’t open either. There were two pates off to the left I first went to the one that was closest to the right. There were wooden signs that pointed down the road for a couple different villages and then the caves back the way I came at 50 m. I decided that must mean the other path. The signs at that path included a map of the villages and a sign saying that the caves were 50 m back the way I came. Frustrated I thought they were pointing at the closed building that was about 15 m away. So I stood by the sign that advertised the caves with an arrow pointing towards the building and/or the two paths and waited for someone to come by and ask them where to go.
A man with his grandchild came by and pointed to the mountain behind the lake that the other path at the bus stop led to. So I headed back to the bus stop, but the man stopped me and told me to go around the 芦笛岩 building. This led me on a bridge that went over the lake and then a little ways into the trees at the base of the mountains. When a lady tried to sell me cave postcards I asked her where they were and she pointed to a big modern looking building across the street!
So if you don’t miss your bus stop, the caves are on the same side of the road that you get off of a little ways up the hill. Ignore the bright flags and signs with arrows they lie!
When you get to the building it is clean, shiny and new. There are signs in English and everything. You walk passed the visitors waiting area and buy your ticket for 90 RMB the seemingly only place in Guilin that hasn’t increased in price since my Lonely Planet came out (May 2011). There were a few people standing or sitting around chatting, it took me a second to see the entryway which was at the end of a railing that went the length of the area. There was a man in there looking at the wall of pictures of famous people that visited the caves and not acting as if he was in line (which there was none) for the caves. A woman entered from the other end also looking at the pictures. These two blocked my way for a bit but I scooted around them and showed the lady my ticket. She told me ‘5 minutes’.
So I waited and slowly a queue formed behind me with the man right behind me. It was soon obvious that it was a by tour only especially when the man told the guy behind him that the foreigner cut him in line. There is nothing in English at least that says by tour only, he didn’t try to stop me from passing him, and he was still second in line so I didn’t feel bad, especially when they announced the tour and about 20 more people entered the line.
The tour guide speaks Chinese (obviously) but the features that were named also had the signs in English the first one was: The morning sunrise over the lion jungle. I didn’t see the lion until the lights changed colour. The sign were all in fancy green neon lights, which were hard to read in general and horrible to take pictures of. So I don’t remember the name of the next one. There was Mushroom Hill next to a Snowman. After that was something along the lines of ‘a harvest of vegetables’ where you could see what looked like broccoli, and a type of lettuce. The next one I didn’t understand: A Boxwood Carving. There was: Singing Birds and Fragrant flowers where the white lighted parts are the birds and the red bit is the flower. The next one was a great column whose sign was so far away I couldn’t read it at all. Cloudy Mountains Outside The Window Curtain was the last one before we paused briefly for photos.
There was a brightly coloured section of cave that was set up to take those photos you have to pay for. The guy spoke wicked fast, but I got that you would get a free keychain like at Sanxingdui. They handed out an empty keychain and a slip that said which photo was yours to collect at the end. So I got in line, to get my picture next to a fake pearl on a cave feature. The tour guide continued on before everyone finished getting their pictures taken. This was the next named feature and the green area of that, which I liked the best, the lights were turned out before I could read the name.
Then projected on the flat part of the ceiling was a video. It started with a dragon that turned to stone and became the earth and then dinosaurs, volcanoes/meteorites, then ice age and mammoths, then rains and bodies of water, then green-which all contributed to the creation of the caves. Then our attention was directed over to this area, where a standing screen played a ballet piece that reflected in the water below (no clue why). Then there was another photo op with the blue background. The tour guide waited this time and as we were leaving the area another nice column was highlighted.
The next one I didn’t understand at all: The Viewing of Guilin at a distance I suppose that it sort of looks like mountains. There was a crevice which you could pay 5 RMB to view the sign (that you can see a bit of in the photo) showed tortoise shells that the Chinese used to divine with. So it might be to get your fortune read, I’m not sure. The sign said 伍元 instead of 五元 (five yuan/ 5 RMB) which I can never remember what 伍 means exactly. According to my dictionary it is used for cheques and important things so there is no confusion. It is how it is written on the 5 jiao bill (which is half of 1 RMB), but the 1 jiao bill (which is 1/10th of 1 RMB) has the pinyin for 1 but the character is crazy and not close to the usual one that is used to show 1. But at the time, I skipped the crevice, not sure of what was going on.
The next one was: Listening to Flute Music in a Secluded Place, and they did have flute music playing. Then there was: A Idyllic Fairyland with changing colours, which had my favourite cave feature the small flat sheet at an angle that I cannot remember the name of. Next before I could see the feature our guide started singing all I could see was red and blue lights and green lasers dancing. When I got up there I understood the singing as I was looking at: A Stage Curtain.
This next part had no name, but the guide stopped and talked about it, what this part looked like (I thought insect) seemed to change when the light did (more person like), which was cool.
The last feature of the cave is A Lion Seeing off Guests. Which I thought was cute since it began and ended with Lions.
You are let out at what I believe is the left side of the building that you entered into. Right in front is where you pick up the photos. They are 20 RMB a piece. I liked the way that I looked in the first photo (with the pearl) but it looked fake, the background of the second photo was much better but there was glare on my glasses. I debated for a bit and decided against either. I tried to put the pictures in the keychain but there is nothing to hold them in place. I didn’t ask them about it, for a few reasons the lighting wasn’t the best so I could have just missed it, they might only put it in if you buy the big photo, and I don’t know how to say: ‘how to do this?’ all I could say that would sort of be there are: ‘I don’t understand this’ or ‘this is no good’ and as it is a free keychain I felt that that would have fallen flat. In the end I found the front piece in the camera case I had put the keychain in initially when packing so the plastic bag the keychain was in must not have been sealed when I got it, still doesn’t stay together well.
To the left is a gift shop and behind the photo pick up was a path to the mountain. I went through the gift shop and over an overpass to the mountain on the other side of the road with the lake and everything. It was only noon and I wasn’t hungry so I climbed up the mountain. I found Half-Hill Pavilion (and found that the rest of the path up was blocked so I went down the path on the other side. I found the lady who tried to sell me post cards before as I had walked away she had said two packs for 10 RMB. I just wanted the cave ones, I looked at them liked them and asked how much she said ‘si kuai’ which is 4 RMB but as I leaned in Sichuan some people cannot pronounce ‘shi’ (10) correctly and as a pack of 10 postcards is usually 10 RMB I gave her a ten. She sort of looked at me confused and started to show me more cards, and it sounded like she was saying two for ten. So I looked at river one said okay but then she wanted another ten. And I really didn’t want the cards so I said no, and tried to leave. She followed me for a bit showed me a landscape book pointed out that it was 70 RMB but she was selling it for 20 RMB and then she threw in a pack of free post cards and then a second pack I said no, and took the path that was to the right when I had gotten off of the bus to get back to the bus stop.
I wanted to get off at the Cross Roads (十字街) stop just to see where it was and counted 15 stops until then. The ticker on the bus wasn’t working and the signs outside at the bus stop were too small to see from the bus most of the time. So I counted. Part way through the ticker and a map of the line with lights that indicated where you were started working. So I knitted and waited. My stop I counted as 13. When we left the Art Gallery stop I went to get up and the lady sitting next to me got up as well. Both the ticker and the map said that the next stop was the Art Gallery I was confused. But only a few people had gotten off and nobody got on at the previous stop and we were at a standstill so I thought he had let people off at a non-designated stop. About 30 metres from the stop he let people off. About 10 metres from the stop he let people on and this one guy off. When we were finally at the stop I saw that it was the Cross Roads stop! He did not let me off. Both the ticker and the map skipped the Cross Roads stop and the bus turned down south Zhongshanzhong lu which is away from where I was going and stopped two blocks down where I got off and decided to walk.
It was a good thing though. I saw a bakery and decided to look I got a doughnut, strawberry cake (that tasted a bit like Neapolitan ice cream), and bubble tea. I then found a Pizza Hut on the southwest corner of Zhongshanzhong lu and Sanduo lu, which is interesting because Dean said that Pizza Hut only goes to Province Capitals and didn’t want to go to Dongying, and Guilin only has a population of 700000 less than half of Dongying-though it is more of a tourist place.
I wanted to walk up Zhongshanzhong lu to go to the bank so I could be sure I had enough money to get home and to last me through the Spring Festival shut down. I originally planned on getting just enough to get from the Beijing Airport to the bus station and the bus station to Dongying. But as I walked I decided to just take out enough that it would last me a while, about what I spend in a month knowing that with things shutdown for Spring Festival I would probably be eating a lot of Pizza Hut and McDonalds. The strange thing was when I went to the Bank of China and took out money from my Bank of China account it charged me a 10 RMB fee! I don’t know if it was a separate province fee (unfair! It is the same bank) or a you took the same amount of money out three days ago from the same atm fee (I had the unexpected cost of the Leshan hotel, so I only had 300 RMB with me after I paid for the Guilin hostel and the Solitary Beauty Peak was 130 RMB!). I have never seen an ATM fee even when I have been forced to use a non-Bank of China ATM. I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen since my account always says I have an odd amount of change like .68 when I have only put whole notes into the account and China runs strictly on the 0.1 cent instead of the 0.01 cent like the US. So some fluctuation in my account I can never account for, but that was the first time I saw it announced.
I only had 38 RMB on my phone and right next to my hostel was a China Telecom. The guy thought I was an idiot. I said two numbers and he said ‘no China Mobile’ I said ‘no it is China Telecom’ and when I said the third number he agreed with me. He decided he didn’t like my pronunciation of numbers so he had me write it down (I forgot one number) and after him saying no a couple times he said to check it, I did fixed the number and then he said no because it was a different province! Said something else probably directions to get a phone card like I had to get in Xian and I left. I asked the hostel people so I could get better directions but they couldn’t tell me. It took them a minute to understand that I live in Shandong. I gave up and the girl asked if my parents were in Shandong province and I said no I was a teacher. I asked Tom how he put money on my phone for me while he was in Shenzhen and I was in Xian and he said I needed to connect my bank card to my WeChat and do it like that.
When I got back to my room I looked up the Chinese for Reed Flute Cave 芦笛岩 (lu2di2yan2) and see if my guess was right. Firstly the second character wasn’t bamboo field what I thought was field: 田was really 由 (you2 which means: to pass through); so to pass through bamboo = flute (because they made flutes from bamboo). So 芦 is Reed but the traditional, which was on my map and what I would have been looking for is: 籚. Can you see how I wouldn’t connect the two so quickly? Especially when the print was small. Either way it was a fun adventure and I got done almost everything I needed to.
I lazed about in the afternoon writing about my hectic adventure figuring since it was my last night that I would eat in the Hotel restaurant drink imported beer. I also entertained the idea of walking down to the Sun and Moon pagoda and seeing it at night. That all depended on when I had to get a taxi to go to the airport.
I went down to the front desk at about 18:00 ready for an adventure, if I had the time and asked about the taxi. The sign above the front desk said that it was a 110 RMB taxi ride and I needed to figure it all out since my flight was at 11:30 on Wednesday. They said since my flight wasn’t too early or too late I could take a taxi to the CAAC hotel and the shuttle back to the airport. They told me the taxi was about 15 RMB which made me feel better about paying 20 RMB to get to the hotel. They said I had to leave about 8:00-:30 in the morning.
I checked the hotel restaurant for the sign that said when they stopped serving food. But I couldn’t find it; I remembered it as 21:00 and called it good enough. I left at 18:20 for the Sun and Moon Twin Pagodas.
According to Lonely Planet the Sun Pagoda is made of copper and is the tallest in the world. There is also an underwater bridge that connects them and that the sun pagoda is the only pagoda that has a lift; though the pagoda at Dujiangyan Irrigation System in Chengdu had one as well.
It took me 20 minutes to walk there and seeing people sitting in Little Italian (another restaurant and café suggested by Lonely Planet) thought that that may be a better place to eat after. I was finally able to get a picture of the odd platform that I saw the first time at the edge of the lake without any people on it.
When I first got there I was immediately ambushed by three Chinese girls to take a picture with them. By the time I could take my own pictures the moon pogoda was putting on a rainbow light show, where each tier lit up in colours (other than white). I even got it when the tiers where changing colour vertically. At first I was annoyed because I wanted the Sun and Moon Pagodas to look reminiscent of their namesakes. I noticed that the roof of the Sun Pagoda was the only part that changed colour and waited until the colours seemed more sun and moon to me. The more I watched the more I realised that the light show was interesting and unique. The colour of the roof on the Sun Pagoda changed rapidly usually in a bottom up fashion, sometimes top to bottom. While the Moon Pagoda roof changed colour much slower in a right to left fashion where the new colour would slowly darken and then change: green to teal, blue to almost purple (which never came out on camera), then red to a dark pink colour. I waited for the rainbow light show on the Moon Pagoda to start again but after 20 minutes I decided to give up. I did get a few panorama shots of the lake, the other lighted buildings and then a shot of the building behind the Pagodas when it turned its lights on.
Across the street there were bamboo trees that grew between the railing and the strand before the river. I think they are there to block the view of the Elephant Trunk Hill. They were also lit up and it played music so I made a video (which may not play).
After that I walked up to Little Italian and flipped through their menu that they had outside. I decided on Baked Eggplant and Cheese and a Hefeweissbier Dunkel, the picture of the ‘banana split’ looked like a banana crepe with chocolate, but I didn’t try it. I was the only one there but it didn’t matter the food was great! The Eggplant and Cheese was Eggplant Parmesan without pasta or breading on the eggplant. It was still really good. The portion was small but as long as you aren’t really hungry you should be fine. Above my table was a bookshelf the paperbacks there were mostly in German and English and mostly fiction a copy of the Hunger Games: Catching Fire was there and they were all well-read, when I got up to pay I saw another bookshelf with Chinese books and a few travel books about China and this, which I want a copy of. The music was good mostly ‘slow dance songs’ from high school dances the classics nothing from the 21st century. I didn’t hear Stairway to Heaven but I did hear Simon and Garfunkel’s A Bridge over Troubled Water. I would definitely recommend it.
I almost missed the turn for the hostel since I was looking at the river. When I got back I was flipping through their Guilin tour book to find the information about the Pagodas. I could have sworn that I read when they were built in it. But I couldn’t find it, the hostel workers suggested lonely planet and I looked at their 2009 copy which gave the same information as mine. I did notice in their tour book that I was correct in the guess that rice noodles were a specialty of Guilin and so was Osmanthus tea.