Journey to Our China Princess

The Beautiful Li River, that flows through Guilin, Kelina's hometown

We spent the day on the Lijiang River that flows through Guilin, Lina's hometown. We took a wonderful 4 hour boat ride from South of Guilin to Yangshuo County. The view of the limestone mountains was amazing!! Their shapes and the steepness of them are unique.

It was also nice to see local fishermen, especially the Cormorant bamboo boats in which the fisherman uses the Cormorant bird to catch fish. When the bird lands back on the boat with a fish in its mouth, the fisherman takes the fish and puts it in his basket. Smart man! Hey, Uncle Chris, maybe we can bring you a Cormorant home (just kidding--you are too good of a fisherman to need a bird's help).

Another of the attractions along the Li River is the scene pictured on the back of the 20 Yuan Chinese currency. Seems it's a tradition to get a picture of the bill with this scene in the background.
















From Matt: People here are very friendly - the folks we shared the table with on the boat offered offered to share their plate of fish they had ordered. I was daring enough, and it was pretty good. One of the employees on the boat spoke some English, and struck up a relationship, explaining the names and meanings of many of the rock formations along the way. We suspect that the locals might have been having some fun at our expense too - they have here what some of the adopting Americans have termed "squatty potties" - toilets that are basically a hole in the floor with little foot pads on either side of it, rather than a raised-seat western-style toilet. You can use your imagination to fill in the details. Anyway, I was headed for a door that he was pretty sure was the restroom. There were two locals outside the door, and he figured he'd wait in line after them. One of them in very broken English said "to-let?" and I nodded to indicate that's what I was after. The guy pointed to a door at the bottom of a small staircase. I followed his advice, and opened that door the find a squatty potty. For us guys, well, let's just say more than half of the time the squatty potty isn't so big a deal, and this was one of those times, so I did just fine. But later on in the trip, I happened to catch a glance inside that door where I was originally waiting, and there was a western toilet inside! I can imagine now that after that squatty potty door closed behind me, the guy that directed me down there had a good chuckle with his friend... A real "I told him we've already got one!" moment, for all you fellow Monty Python fans out there.