Floating on Bamboo

July 18th, 2016

After dropping off our luggage we decided to explore the area around our hotel.

It was the cutest village!

The landscape was gorgeous and there were the neatest stone pathways along the river.

So pretty!

Oh, hey peacocks!

If you have ever read or seen "Journey to the West" then you may recognize these two:

We stopped in the shops along the way and got fresh juice from this sweet lady :)

Some of the best juice I have ever had!

The mountains of Guilin are my favorite.

I don't know what it is about them, but I love them so much! They make me happy every time I see them :)

 Isn't it gorgeous here?!

We would visit a second time for sure :)

 We came across this really pretty stone courtyard.

The artistry was beautiful.

Seems like a good enough spot to fish.

 We miss seeing these mountains!

After exploring a bit, we started making our trek to the Reed Flute Caves. It wasn't super far away from where we were staying, but it was a good walk away.

We passed lots of fishermen and beautiful stones.

Scooters!

It seemed like every part on the bridge had different carvings on it.

Upon making it close to the Reed Flute Caves, we decided to take a ride on a bamboo raft. Translation: These two Chinese bamboo raft paddlers bombarded us and basically wouldn't take no for an answer---in the nicest way haha

 At first I was nervous because we just sat on these little boxes, but the raft seemed pretty sturdy. It was fun to ride around the lake a bit.

After finishing the floating bamboo raft ride, we climbed some incredibly steep stairs to get to the opening of the caves. We didn't have to wait in line too long. There were a few school groups there, so we got stared at a lot by the kids haha

When we got in, there were so many colors! When we were planning our trip, we looked up the reed flute caves and thought they were actually colored. When we got in there, we saw that it was only colored lights shining on the different stalactites and stalagmites. 

I must say, the Chinese sure do know how to put on a show!

They named the structure behind us

A Snowman.

Can you see it??

At first I thought the colored lights were super goofy, but it actually added a beautiful touch to the caves. 

They even showed a clip of some dancers from a famous ballet and it looked like they were dancing on the water in the cave. It was beautiful and something we definitely did not expect to see.

When we were deeper in the caves, they started a movie that they projected on the top of the caves with a dragon coming out at you. 

And then they went through the different periods of time.

Dinosaurs

Ice Age

Green Age

(haha I don't know what this is called)

Shark Age

Word Age

;)

 Good job Guilin. That was a fun show!

They named this area the "Stage Curtain"

It really looked like a curtain.

On the way out we passed this guy which they named:

"A lion seeing off guests"

"A lion seeing off guests"

Overall, the Reed Flute Caves were pretty cool and very colorful thanks to colored light bulbs :)

"No strting"

Not sure what that is...haha

The english translation and spelling was really a crack up!

After the reed flute caves, we headed back to our little hotel village and ate at one of the local restaurants. It was pretty funny because the lady handed Caleb a menu with lots of pictures and handed me one with only characters on it and told me to pick what I wanted haha

Oh! And I just remembered. While we were looking at the menus, the lady sitting at the table behind us came right up to us and just stood there looking over our shoulders. haha! At first I was weirded out, but then it just reiterated that in China, there really is no personal space! I think she was going to help us pick something, but she just ended up standing silently behind us for awhile and then finally went back to her seat. haha! 

We ended up ordering way too much food, but WOW! It was AMAZING!!!

The flavors of legit Chinese food are so delicious!

At this particular place they cooked a lot with ginger, which added such yummy flavor.

 This dish was just a beef, garlic, and tomato dish.

It was one of our favorites!

See those big chunks of ginger??

Of course, we had to get steamed bok choy!

We also ordered fried rice, but it wasn't our favorite. The soup we ordered was also spot on.

We love Chinese food and honestly, I miss eating with chop sticks!!
But I don't miss drinking hot water.

That night, we explored a little more around our village shops and then went back to the hotel and watched "Journey to the West" hahah 

I think our friend Daffie said that the rendition made in the 80's was the best. 

Check it out if you don't know what I am talking about!

There's a book and tons of shows/movies about it.