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!  

Shanghai and Xi'an: 2012

Once we had left Nanjing and Jason had finished his classes we had a mad dash through China to finish our sightseeing.  

The first place we went was Shanghai.  It's hard to describe how puny you feel in the world's largest city, with a population of over 23 million.  The weirdest feeling is when we went up in the skyscrapers and we couldn't even see the edge of the city.  It was an amazing sight and it made you feel so tiny.  

We went up the World Financial Center, which is the 2nd tallest building in the world.  But it has the highest observation tower in the world, which meant that Jason and I had the best view in the world that night we watched the sunset over Shanghai.  I also have to admit that we shared the world's highest kiss.    

Here are some views from the Fincancial Center.

A panoramic view of Shanghai.  

This is what the World Financial Center building looks like.  It's so tall you have to arch your back to see the top, and from the ground you can't see the square hole at the top that makes it look like a bottlecap opener. 



Here is a view of the Financial Center next to the Jinmao Tower next to it.  I love that you can't even see the tops of these building because they are too high. 

We then went to a part of town called "The Bund."  This is right next to the Yangtze River and has a ton of classic European architecture and looks lovely at night.  But I think the main appeal of The Bund is that it looks across the river to downtown Shanghai and it has the best view of these skyscrapers from the ground.  We saw a ton of ads out in China with this background in the pictures.

A view of downtown Shanghai.  Can you see the Financial Center that looks like the bottlecap opener in the middle of the picture? 

Here are some pictures of Shanghai in the daytime.  We were so lucky with the weather here because we were talking with some buisnessmen from Chicago who said that they haven't seen a clear sky in Shanghai for 5 months.  When we got there the smog lifted up and we had a weekend of beautiful skies.  

My smokin hot husband!  

A panoramic view of the Shanghai from The Bund.  

We went to this cool bar called "The Alchemist" where you can buy these crazy cool drinks.  Of course we had  non-alcoholic drinks, but it was still a blast to be with everyone.  

As you can read on the sign behind us, we had some delicious Texas BBQ  in Shanghai.  We can't  even tell you how wonderful it tasted to have some BBQ after weeks of rice and noodles.  

Here is Jason outside of this expensive store.  He is hoping that someday we can go inside it.  

Our next stop was a short flight away in the city of Xi'an.  There really is nothing in Xi'an except for the singular reason we flew there: The Terracotta Warriors.  

A view from our hotel.  Xi'an seemed pretty isolated and very dry, even though there is a river behind Jason.  

Jason Burrows: The missing Terracotta Warrior

All of the original Terracotta Warriors were made out of clay and then cooked to solidify the  material.  Here is an example of how this process was completed, with one of the ovens they used to cook the warriors.  

Here are some pictures of the Terracotta Warriors.  We went from pit to pit where the warriors were originally found and where many are still located.  We weren't allowed to get too close, but we enjoyed our view from afar.  

After spending the morning seeing the Terracotta Warriors we had some local lunch.  Xi'an is known for their noodles, which actually tasted pretty good, but we had a ton of noodles by this point.  

We really enjoyed both of these cities, but I think we preferred Shanghai because there is so much to do there and I could definitely see us returning to the skyscraper city.  Seeing the Terracotta warriors was amazing as well, but we were informed by our guide in Xi'an that there is still more to uncover with the warriors, and that they expect to be done with the excavations in 50 years.  So we both looked at our guide and said "Well, then we will see you in 50 years."  

Just a couple more posts about China and then the trip will be officially over!  

Favorite Picture Friday: August 17th, 2012

We are both so excited that Jason is going to be starting his 2nd Year of Law School!  So he is officially a 2L in 2 weeks.  We celebrated this a bit early since I am starting work next week and Jason is starting an internship with the Federal Judge at the same time.  He works so hard and I am so proud of him in all that he does.