Approaching Guilin which is renowned for the beauty of the karst that surrounds it.
Here, as in other Chinese cities, the pedestrian crossings are there simply to facilitate those on wheels.
But their road sweeping queens definitely have priority over everyone.
We settled in to our room at the Waterfall Hotel (although it is situated opposite Shan Lake there was no sign of a waterfall) and decided to head out for a wander around. The light was pretty flat and I retook some better pictures later on which I'll post further down (in time sequence as per usual).
Like Xi'an this is another city where people like to dress up. The costumes here are based more on what the smaller tribes of the area wore rather than Imperial China (and also not unlike some of the tribal outfits we saw in Northern Thailand).
I don't know if these were for sale or hire, but it gives you an idea of the variety of costume.
A couple of shots of the stone carvings around the lake.
This ugly block of concrete is the intriguingly named "Waterfall Hotel"
The Sun
and Moon Pagodas were originally built during the Tang dynasty but were reconstructed in 2001 using historical
records as the centrepiece of Riyue Shuangta Cultural Park. The 7 storey
(35m) Moon Pagoda was built on an island in Shan Lake whilst
the Sun Pagoda (9 storey 41 m) was built out in the lake. The Sun Pagoda is faced with bronze and the
Moon Pagoda with glazed tile. The Sun Pagoda
is one of the few pagodas in the world that has a lift.
Ian in front of the Sun Pagoda
And another shot of the Sun Pagoda but minus Ian so it's in focus!
Aren't these cute - piggies instead of boring concrete bollards.
Walking past an art gallery I thought this giant panda picture was just lovely, but remembering how many pictures I've bought in the past that have never made in onto the wall once home, I resisted.
No idea
This little girl was sitting by a roadside stall and whilst her Mum was full of smiles and happy to chat, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't coax a smile out of her.
Given the huge vehicles we usually see, this one in our hotel car park was surprisingly compact.
Back in the hotel and we bumped into this chap - it's a robot. And it cleans the floor and also delivers things to people's rooms using the lifts.
Dinner was once again very early at around 17:30 and rather bizzarely it was in an Irish Bar which poor Raymond thought everyone would like. The food was pretty much the same as we've had everywhere else but apparently the drinks were more than twice the price - so that didn't go down very well. Dinner was finished about 19:00 and, as it was still early and light, we thought we'd see what Guilin had to offer for the tourist. The place certainly has a holiday feel to it with lots of street food for sale.
But this was one of the few unidentifiable foodstuffs we've seen so far.
I feel a bit mean drawing attention to her as I'm sure I'd not look at my best on a static bike in public, but look at the expression the girl on the left is pulling - give her credit though, she's the only one who appears to actually be pedalling.
We walked across a vast concreted area where this chap seemed to be giving football training.
Then a final walk around the lake before heading back to the hotel.
You can really see the detail on the Moon Pagoda on this one.
And the posing continued well into the night with the professional photographers carrying a myriad of lighting equipment.
I thought these little ones playing with the lit globe were so cute.
We'd wondered why our hotel was named Waterfall Hotel and have found out: at 20:30 each night water cascades from the top of the building; exactly why we have no idea!
And a short video
To be perfectly honest I couldn't really see the attraction of it, it was on the far (non lake) side and everyone just sat on a wall watching it!
