The Larson Family Shanghai Page

From April 28th through May 2nd our family went on a very, very fun and exciting vacation to Guilin and Yangshuo, China.  It is a very famous and picturesque location with a sub-tropical climate and beautiful limestone mountain peaks in all shapes and sizes, covered in beautiful green trees.  Plus, they come straight up out of the surrounding flat ground so it is very easy to navigate the area by bike and boat to see the sights and also check out the local Chinese farming culture.  There is way too much to tell and show in one blog entry, so we’ll be uploading something new most days this week for day-by-day recap of the adventure.

The trip actually started late Sunday night (the 27th), when we flew from Shanghai to Guilin.  Our flight didn’t land in Guilin until 11:00 p.m. and then it took another hour and a half to get to our hotel in town, check in, and get to bed.  We didn’t stay long in Guilin, however, because the next morning we had a van pick us up and take us down to the town of Yangshuo, about 50 miles to the south.  It is a small tourist town surrounded by rivers, mountains, and farms.  We stayed at the Yangshuo Culture House (www.2hostel.com) which I found from internet research.  For our entire family of 6, we paid about $63 a day for two rooms with adequate bed space (unlike Xi’an in March), PLUS breakfast and dinner every day.  Such a deal indeed.  Anyone who comes to visit and wants to take an adventurous side trip while you’re here, I highly recommend Yangshuo.

After getting settled in our hotel, we walked into town and down to the Li River where we hired a small boat to take us on a 1 hour ride up the river and back.  After this ride and further adventures around the area, Tracey and I are convinced that Dr. Seuss must have come here to get inspiration for many of his fantastic landscapes and trees.  Here is a sample of pictures from our ride:

The kids were all smiles and Tracey whipped out her camera to take pictures like these:

Up, up, up to the top of Mount Crumpet… just without the snow.

At the halfway point of the ride, the kids got out to soak their feet in the cool water.

At the conclusion of the ride, the red headed rock stars were again mobbed by a group of adoring fans.  We eventually escaped, met up with a very nice tour guide to help us in the coming days (see future posts), and then went back to the hotel for dinner.

In back of our hotel/hostel are six rectangular pools of water that are basically common clothes washing areas for the locals.  They stay hunched over in this position for up to an hour doing their clothes.  Tracey says that this must be how they do so well at the “squatty pottys.”  Anyway, the kids had a lot of fun going back to these pools to play and “water the trees” with some long water squirters.  Unfortunately, on this first day Eric got a little careless…

He was not a happy camper for a while, but he never fell in again.

Next up… Tuesday’s 30km bike ride.