Thursday, November 3, 2011

Day 59-62

We are officially ready to come home.  It's funny how at the end of a trip, no matter the length, all of a sudden you're ready to go home and we reached that point today.  We leave for Hong Kong tomorrow for our last 3 days and we have been looking forward to seeing that city. After a whirlwind tour we will take the torturous flight home. 

After getting off the boat we toured Chongqing stopping at the zoo to see the panda's.  Chongqing is in panda country and they have 8 at the zoo and a research center outside of the city with many more to observe and study.  We went to the world war 2 flying tiger museum which was really neat since my Dad talked about the pilots that flew those missions during the war. He was a navy fighter pilot during the war and he sure would have enjoyed seeing that museum.  I sure wish he was still with us so I could tell him all about it.

After Chongqing we flew to Xian to see the terracotta warriors.  It was absolutely fascinating.  I highly recommend it.  The problem however with Xian, is that the pollution was horrible.  We had wanted to rent bicycles and ride around the old city wall but we couldn't even see a block ahead of us, and since it was about a 10 mile ride, we decided not to do it.  Our eyes and throat were burning just standing there.  The pollution here is quite sad and it's a shame that we will leave with that being a big, negative, impression on us.

Wednesday we arrived in Guilin which was a wonderful change with sunny skies and warm weather.  We spent today biking through the countryside and small villages and hiking up 3 of the hill/mountains that surround this place.  It's really beautiful.

A few new tidbits we've experienced:  coffee served with milk and enough sugar to gag
                                           we got served dried cherry tomatoes for a snack on the plane
                                            foreigners are sometimes referred to as 'hello' people, or big nose people

                                            a hour massage only costs $8.50 here in Guilin            


gawking at us

really corny but we had to do it


panda 

                                                                                                             
terracotta warriers
split pants


biking in Guilin

hiking in Guilin

                                                 

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