My trip to Guilin was by far one of the most amazing experiences I think I will have in China. The train ride to Guilin was definitely an interesting journey. Our train was delayed an hour which wasn't the worst thing that could happen because we were running a little late anyways. But once we got to the train station and found our platform to board the train we stood in the waiting room for a good hour. To start off this "wonderful" train experience everyone is trying to tell me something about my suitcase, which not even the second year students I was with could understand. The people just kept asking for money and pointing to my bag so at first we were scared it was too big since a few of us packed our stuff in it. It turned out to be a scam but it resulted in getting the attention of many other people waiting for the train who then began to blatantly stare at us. This wasn't just a stare for a few minutes, it lasted the entire time we waited for the train. Eventually we tried to get them to stop by staring back but they would only break their stare and then proceed to stare again once we had stopped.
Then the train rolled into the station and it was a complete madhouse. Everyone stood up and rushed to the doors that hadn't been unlocked yet. As soon as the workers began taking tickets and unlocked the doors everyone in the back began pushing forward and I honestly thought I was going to get knocked down and trampled over at one point. Someone had spilled something wet on the floor and I had my backpack and my luggage on me so it was very difficult for me to weave in and out of the people to avoid being trampled. I still don't understand why the Chinese are so hurried for stuff like that because as soon as we were through the doors and walking towards the train they all slowed to a walk and just casually got to the train. It's not like they wouldn't get seats, we all already bought tickets and you're guaranteed your seat once you buy the ticket so it doesn't make sense to push and shove like they tend to do. Maybe someday I'll figure that one out but for now I know just to hang back for a couple minutes and then I can get to the train without all the pushing and shoving.
Once we were on the train we knew not to expect anything too nice since we weren't able to get soft sleeper compartments. Well it was a good thing we didn't expect much because we didn't get much. There are six hard sleepers to a compartment, three high, with a towel for a blanket and a thin piece of cloth they called a pillow (mild exaggeration). We found our compartments and within twenty minutes of the traveling (around 10:30 at night) they turned off all of the lights on the train. Well we are college students, going to bed early is not something we tend to do. So the girls came over into our compartment and we all just sat on the two beds in my compartment and talked till late in the night because we needed to be exhausted to be able to sleep on the hard sleepers. We all finally were tired enough to sleep so we went to bed. I slept off and on all night due to sounds, smells, and the trains stopping and going. Well, sunrise rolls around and they start playing some sort of Chinese chant music very loudly over the trains speaker system. Needless to say my attempt at sleeping any longer was futile. Once we all woke up around 8 a.m. we had to kill time until 6 p.m. that day when our train FINALLY rolled into Guilin.
Guilin was well worth the train ride experience. As soon as we get out of the train station I could see these beautiful mountains all around and in the city. It was gorgeous and unlike anything I've ever seen except in pictures. We then took a very cheap taxi ride, less than 2 USD, to our hotel so we could shower and clean up since we had been on a train for almost a full 24 hours. The hotel was so much better than what I expected. We got two rooms for 13 USD per person a night which is amazing. We had a sofa, two beds, and double pain windows to block out all city noise. The beds had feather comforters and pillows and one of the softest mattresses I've ever slept on. We decided to go explore this new city though instead of nap, which was very tempting. Mostly we wanted to find somewhere nice to eat. We were given $250 for the trip and we intended to live pretty well for this brief time, especially after the train ride experience. We were walking down a street full of restaurants and trying to find something that looked good. One lady ushered us into her restaurant and gave us a menu that the second years had a difficult time reading and I didn't even attempt to seeing as I haven't learned any food characters yet. Well our server recommended something and we just said yes and crossed our fingers. They brought out Kung Pow Chicken, sweet and sour pork, and eggplant. We all instantly fell in love with the restaurant. The people there were so nice and they had the best sweet and sour pork. After stuffing ourselves and paying $2.50 a person we were on our way to explore the city more.
We walked around for a while and just got a feel for the city. We could tell Guilin was a city that was getting used to tourism though because they had a lot bakeries, Italian restaurants, and coffee shops. After getting a coffee and some different cakes we went back to our hotel to share the food and try the different flavored slices of cake. After that we were all so exhausted from the lack of sleep on the train we decided to just go to bed and start the next day bright and early.
Bright and early ended up being around 11 a.m. for my friend and I. We went to wake up the girls so we could all go out and explore the city some more but one of them wasn't feeling well so they decided to stay in and sleep some more. My friend and I did some research online and found one of the main areas in Guilin and decided to take a taxi there to do walk around and do some shopping. We stayed in the area for most of the afternoon and after trying on different clothes and realizing that Chinese clothes tend to not fit our bodies we wandered around.
We happened to wander into a place called the Seven Stars Scenic Park. Named for it's seven major mountains and their peaks, it was gorgeous. We paid the 30 yuan entrance fee and walked around the park for a good two and half hours and still barely saw half of the park. As we were walking we saw a sign that said "Caution, Fierce Monkeys." At first we didn't see any monkeys but as we continued to walk around we saw some drop out of a tree. It was pretty cool to see wild monkeys walking around the park that was right in the middle of the city. As we were watching them walk around the ground a woman walked by with a shopping bag full of food and the bigger of the two monkeys took off running for it and tried grabbing it. The woman simply pulled the bag up and drop kicked the monkey. My friend and I were laughing hysterically as the woman kicked the monkey away and it ran after a good kick to the face. After that we made sure to avoid getting too close to the monkeys because who knows if they would have thought we had food on us.
By this time we were trying to think of different things to do for the rest of the evening since the girls were doing their own thing that day. We remembered that on our way from the hotel we saw a theater called the "Dreamlike Theater" and that the show started somewhere around seven. So we decided to go back to the hotel, research the show, clean up, and go to the show if it looked good. The show was well known in the area and supposedly sold out every night. We decided to spend the 150 yuan and go see it. After waiting 20 minutes past the shows starting time (Chinese people aren't very punctual) we saw one of the best shows I have ever seen. It had all kinds of crazy acrobatic tricks and told the story of Guilin and all of its prominent features. My friend actually got pulled up onto the stage by the intermission show's clown and got to participate in a few magic tricks.
After that we went back to the hotel and met up with the girls. They had gone out and bought tickets for a bamboo raft ride for the four of us the next day. So we got that figured out then the girls decided to stay in the rest of the night. My friend and I still hadn't had dinner so we went out to the Italian restaurant we saw earlier that day and ordered two pizzas which was so nice to have since I have basically only had Chinese food and while I like Chinese food I also like variety. The bamboo raft left early the next morning so we decided to head back to the hotel, watch some world cup, and hit the hay to rest up for the next day's adventure.
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