Day 9 – Returning to GuiLin – Last day with Group
We started the day at our Green Lotus Hotel in YangShuo, and the kids had a Tai Chi lesson in the hotel. Then we checked out and loaded up the bus to head back to Guilin. Since we took the boat cruise on the Li River to YangShua, coming back on the highway was a different view of the karst mountains. Just outside of YangShuo we stopped at the “Pearl Museum” which was just another shopping stop. We were led into a large room with chairs around a runway, and we were treated to a ‘fashion show’ with young ladies in gowns, wearing ensembles of pearl jewelry, walking up and down the runway. Then they turned us loose in the showroom hoping we would buy lots of pearl jewelry. Most of us finished looking after about 30 minutes, then we all had to wait while 2 women finished their prolonged shopping. Most of us felt like too much time was wasted on shopping, at this stop and other ‘shopping’ stops. It is a pity to make 45 people wait while one or two people are shopping.
We finished our drive to Guilin and stopped for a group lunch. The most memorable thing about this lunch were the steamed buns that looked like large toadstools. ..at an upstairs restaurant called the Left Bank Café.
We returned to the hotel for our final evening together. The kids went to the gym for awhile in the afternoon, then came back to clean up for dinner. We had a very fancy group dinner in the hotel, next door to a wedding party. The kids had prepared some performances for a Talent Show and there was a stage set up with a backdrop with the Guilin Mountains and a rainbow of balloons. The funniest one was a skit about a Tae Kwon Do lesson gone very wrong, which finished with a duel between a sword and a rubber chicken. Then the guides got up on stage and sang a song about Love. It squeaking was very hard to say goodbye to our new friends, and the wonderful guides Eric and Yvonne.
The City Tree in Guilin is the Osmanthus, which is a lovely flowering round tree, otherwise known as Sweet Olive or Tea Olive. The fragrance from the flowers is somewhere between a jasmine and a ripe peach or apricot. Osmanthus perfume is a popular product for visitors, but upon further research, I find that it is also a tea, an incense, and a wine! I got bottle of the Osmanthus perfume as we left the city, and I love its light fruity/floral fragrance. However I am still curious that I have never heard of Osmanthus! It is a mouthful if you’ve never heard the word before.
