Monday, February 07, 2005

Guilin Day 3

I woke up at about 5am. My stomach felt kind of funny... and in a little while it felt VERY funny. I won't go any details about how sick I was that night. But I rushed to the bathroom and wondered if I would actually die. For about 20 minutes I was as sick as I'd ever been in my life as my body rejected the "stir fried beef" that I had bought off the street. Lesson learned. Don't eat the street food!

That poor jerk Peter, my tour guid in Guilin caught me in a bad mood once again. The first time was because of the... ummm... confusion with the prostitute and the whole deal with the towels. This time it was because I was really sick. It seems that Guilin doesn't have as much history as the other places I visit, so Peter indulged in telling me about the economics of Guilin and some other stuff I can't remember. It was like riding in a van with C3P0. I just wanted to turn him off after a while.

ANYHOO! We got back to Guilin and this time around visited some parks. I think the pictures I have here are from the Seven Star Park, though I could be wrong. More of the usual stares as chinese people are more captivated by the site of a black man than the magnificent Elephant Trunk Hill. What's elephant trunk hill? According to legend, some emperor was jealous of an elephant cuz the people liked the elephant better than him. I can't remember why. The elephant was magic or something. Anyway, so the emperor, being as insecure as Commodus from Gladiator, kills the elephant, and this hill is the essence of that dead, magical, lovable, Heffalump-esque elephant.

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There was one cute girl who actually followed me around for bit to take my picture. I decided to take one of her too. At least, I find her kinda cute. Little does she know some Canadian dude has just posted her pic on the internet! Badda Bing!

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I took this picture as an excuse to spy on this girl who from a distance I thought might have been cute too. Alas, I don't know what that building in the back is.

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Then I visit some cool caves. Cave pictures didn't turn out very nice but... whatcha gonna do. Here's one pic that has a story behind it. Something about a dragon... And a fish maybe? And that blue light is supposed to be the dragon. Whatever.

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Putting my hand under this rock is good luck! You should go to China and put your hand under this rock like I did! Now see how lucky I am? I got my very own blog!

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And finally a very sentimental MastaCSG decided to take pictures of some very beautiful flowers. Maybe it was the nice weather, maybe it was the fact that Guilin was not shrouded in black clouds like the rest of China, or maybe I just wanted to test out the resolution on my hot camera!

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Parks in China are always cool. Old people roam around wild and free. Especially in the morning time. This old lady was actually doing stuff with a sword to my shock and chagrin! I hope people let me tote weapons around when I'm in my golden years.

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And that was that... a very easy, laid back day in beautful weather. Sadly, the day ended on a rather sour note. Peter gets a phone call and looks rather distressed. He then informs me that there was a problem with my train arrangements. I was to take the "soft sleeper train" to go back north to the city of Hangzhou. So these tour people give me an ultimatum. I can either, take the soft sleeper train very, very late at night OR take a ghetto-ass train at the time I was supposed to.

Hence a fourth law was born... Don't take the ghetto-ass train when in China.

to be continued...