Today was our first full day in Guilin and we made the most of it. We started out with breakfast at the hotel. I decided that I would start with the fruit and there was some very interesting things to try. There was a white fruit that had little black seeds that looked interesting. I decided I had to take a picture of my plate before I started to eat. Of course I wanted to do it as unobtrusively as possible but that didn’t work when I dropped the camera on my plate with a bang! It was very tasty - kind of like a kiwi fruit. I later found out that it is a dragon fruit and imported from Vietnam. There were some very familiar looking things and a few other unusual items to choose from. We tried the “sweet pasties” and decided that the center tasted like a very sweet bean paste. It kind of grew on you. I tried some congee with is a very bland rice soup that is given to infants quite often. I decided if I was going to be giving it to Alexa in a few days I should try it myself.

After breakfast we met out guide Lily and went to Elephant Hill Park and Fubo Hill. They were very interesting but very hot. After those two places we went to Reed Flute Cave. The cave was much cooler and very refreshing after being out in the heat. On the drive to the cave we went by rice fields and saw many interesting sites - watching the traffic here makes me appreciate the freeway at home. I haven’t figured out how they keep from having accidents here. Everyone just seems to go where and when they want and it all works out. There were a lot of close calls though!

We had lunch at Banyon Tree Hotel. We had an onion soup that was wonderful and everything else was very good also. We are starting to get the hang of chopsticks but we really like having forks as backup! After lunch we went to the pearl factory. We saw many beautiful pearl necklaces and earrings and left with a few. Afterwards we headed to the silk factory. It was very interesting. I had never seen a silk cocoon before. Jane, Juli, and Terry had the opportunity to pull one out that could go in a silk quilt. I took pictures. We did some more shopping there.

Dinner was interesting. We played with the shrimp more than we ate it - but we had fun. Afterwards we had an evening cruise around the lakes of Guilin. It was a beautiful evening.

We have had a hard time uploading pictures but I will post this then attempt a few.