China, the Guilin Post

[przed]

From Chengdu we flew in to Guilin. If you've seen photos of rounded, tree-covered mountains in China, that's the landscape around Guilin. It's quite beautiful, and we loved the city.

Instead of a hotel, we stayed in an apartment complex. The building wasn't too impressive from the outside, but the apartment was lovely, decorated with Ming dynasty details. This was the bedroom area.


Here's Ros posing in front of the bookcase that divided the bedroom from the living area.


We visited a tea farm just outside of the city. This is the tea field, with the mountains in the background. I had no idea that all tea, white, green and black, comes from the same plant, but the type of tea depends on when the leaves are picked and how they're processed. This farm used organic techniques, and the tea was delicious. We came home with several boxes of it.


Here's Ros with a hat worn by tea pickers.


The mountains in this area are all limestone, and many of them have extensive cave systems inside. This was inside the Reed Flute Caves. The colours are from lighting, but the rock formations are entirely natural.


Another shot from inside the cave.


Guilin is built around several lakes, and there's a large public park around the lakes. This is us in the park.


One of the bridges in the park. There were bridges spanning the lakes all through the park, leading to a number of islets.


A stone barge in one of the lakes.


This is all that's left of the old city wall. Quite different from the massive city wall in Xi'an.


Another view of the bridge.


Ros climbing one of the gates on an island in the park.


Ros and Don in a moon gate.


Me and Ros in the same moon gate.


The two pagodas built in another of the lakes in the park.

Comments

[zebra363.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever even seen pictures of tea fields before – a hole in my general knowledge that you have now helpfully filled!

These are going to be wonderful photos for Ros to look back on when she's older. I love that first one in the moon gate.

[asilia.livejournal.com]

That looks like such a beautiful place - that cave looks really impressive!

And mmmmh, tea ♥ I'm a complete addict to green and white tea so naturally I'm very jealous you got to buy some at an original plantation, I bet it tastes 100x better than the stuff you can buy in Europe!

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

That's a really pretty place! Those mountains always look so exotic, and to see that the city is exotic, too, with the moon gates, arched bridges, etc. is a real treat. I think I knew all teas came from the same plant, but how lovely to sample them where they are picked!

[solosundance.livejournal.com]

Wonderful pictures, P! The moon gate and the bridge with the charactertistic mountains in the background are beautiful - no wonder you loved the place. Heh, and I adore Ros in the tea-pickers hat too :D

[sc-fossil.livejournal.com]

Again, your pics are so nice. I love seeing new places. Now I want to go!

Re: tea. My state, SC, has the only working commercial tea plantation in the US at this time, although several places are trying to establish tea growing. Same with Canada. People do grow their own. It's a plant that can be home gardened. I've been to the tea plantation here and it's really cool. It's fun to taste test them also.

[snailbones.livejournal.com]

Fabulous piccies, thank you! And so different from your photos of the other cities. I love the ones of you guys in the moon gate.

[rangerke.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, what a stunning place! The tea field against that backdrop, immensely picturesque. The cave is so impressive and that crystal-like reflection, wow again ;) The happiness in the pics is contagious!

[norfolkdumpling.livejournal.com]

What awesome photos you took on this trip - and what lovely memories you'll have! Those caves look so pretty.

[dracothelizard.livejournal.com]

That place is gorgeous!

[przed.livejournal.com]

I had no clue what tea fields would look like either. It was fascinating.

[przed.livejournal.com]

Guilin was beautiful, and the weather was lovely. Definitely a place I'd love to go back to.

The tea was a thousand times better than what you get in Canada. (In Europe you already get much better tea than us.)

[przed.livejournal.com]

The mountains in this area are just fantastic. And that park was lovely! If I lived there I'd be there all the time.

It was fascinating to see how the tea was picked and processed. What an astoundingly time consuming job.

[przed.livejournal.com]

The mountains in this area were brilliant. And the park was amazing. Ros looked much better in the tea-pickers hat than us. *g*

[przed.livejournal.com]

I didn't know people were growing tea in SC. I wonder if it would survive up here, or if the cold would kill it...

[przed.livejournal.com]

All the places were so different. It was a bit of a gruelling trip, but great to see so much variety of landscape and cities.

[przed.livejournal.com]

The cave was wild. It took over half an hour to walk through it all. They give you a little controlled so you can turn on the lights in each area, so you create these pockets of light as you're travelling through it.

[przed.livejournal.com]

The caves were pretty amazing. They had graffiti in them hundreds of years old!

[przed.livejournal.com]

Isn't it, though?!

[sc-fossil.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's really nice tea. American Classic is the brand name. I like it. It has a great flavour (the black tea) and no bitterness. I'm not a fan of green tea. White is all right but a black tea is my drink of choice. I do love a good cuppa.

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

Do Want that bed *g* What a gorgeous place. It's really interesting seeing how different the architectural language is to that that one is used to in old sites in Europe - the curves seem so unexpected and yet so impressive!

Mmmmmmmmmmm, tea *g* And those caves are utterly amazing, Wow, what a lot of wonderful things that you saw!

[przed.livejournal.com]

I loved the whole apartment. What was interesting was that when you looked closely, a lot of the architectural details were pre-fab. I want to have a DIY shop where you can get stuff like that. (We considered having a moon gate built on our porch, but on our little house it would have been a bit ostentatious. We've settled for Don's carpenter dad building us a Chinese-style railing.)