Guilin and Macau: 2012

It has been a while, but we wanted to give you the update from the last little bit of our trip to China.

Once we were done checking out the Warriors in Xi'an, we jumped on another plane and flew to our smallest stop on our adventure: Guilin.  Now, when I say small I mean a city of 4 million people.  Small, right?  Actually it did feel small because everyone was so spread out compared to the other cities and most people were farmers.  It was such a relief to be in Guilin because we had been in nothing but city after city, which we love, but this was a welcomed change.  I couldn't believe how much I had missed plant life and how green it was there that I found myself taking pictures of every tree and bush.  I will spare this post and not share all of those pictures.  

The first thing we did was to visit the Reed Flute Caves.  These are natural caves that are huge and were used as storage back in the days.  Now they are a huge attraction in China because of how beautiful they are with the stalagmites and stalactites.  We compared it to about 5 Mount Timpanogus caves connected together is about how big this cave was.  

   

Just outside the hike up to the caves.   This sign says "Welcome to the Reed Flute Caves."  

A very dark picture of how beautiful it was inside.  Apparently it is very popular for couples to come to this cave because it is so romantic.  I think we enjoyed it because it was fun to walk around and it was nice and cool there compared to the humid heatwave outside.  

Below are some more pictures from the caves.

After exploring the caves we went to view more of the beautiful countryside.  Guilin is known for fishing on little bamboo rafts with cormorants, or birds that they put a little metal band around their neck so they catch the fish in their mouths but can't swallow them.  Needless to say, we didn't eat any fish while we were there!

Here is some of the beautiful scenery around Guilin.  The peaks are all made out of limestone, and form what is called a karst landscape.  Whenever Jason pictured rural China growing up, this is what he pictured.

This bridge in Guilin is held together with sticky rice and eggs.  It's pretty impressive that it's still holding together.  We actually were brave enough to walk across it, and everything was just fine.  

Can you see us on the raft? 

Don't worry, this isn't the raft we used on the water.  It was just a nice resting spot for a hot day.  

I guess the economy is pretty bad in China is they are having to FIRE the rice and noodles.  

Some more gorgeous scenery in Guilin.  

Our hotel in Guilin was next to this lake with these pagodas.  We had a couple of hours before we left so we walked down and had a romantic stroll by the waterside.  

We stumbled on this bridge made entirely out of glass.  

Our very last stop before coming back home was in the Las Vegas of China: Macau!  It was really odd how familiar it was to be in a place like Macau, since we've spent a lot of time in Vegas, so it was like being a little bit closer to home.  We stayed at the MGM Grand in Macau, so we spent most of our time or at the Venetian.

The hallway at the Venetian.  

My absolute favorite thing about Macau was the butterflies at the MGM.  There was this special room where butterflies flew everywhere and they would just come and land on you like in a dream.  It was free to be in there and you could stay as long as you liked, so let's just say that a few hours went by before I could part with those little beauties!  

These two cities were wonderful and a great way to end our trip.  By this point of our trip we were starting to miss our families and eating with forks, but we were still having an amazing time!  

We just have one more post and then we will be all done with China!