Qingming festival (清明节), otherwise known as Tomb Sweeping Day, is a holiday where Chinese people traditionally visit the graves of their ancestors. The workforce here is given a holiday to sweep the graves of their ancestors and provide offerings. We took the opportunity to see some of Southern Central China, specifically the Guanxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
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| Elephant Trunk Hill |
We flew from Shanghai to Guilin, flight time around 2 hours Guilin has more of a small town feel with a population of 620,000; small compared to the Shanghai millions. We really enjoyed the fresh air, and mountain landscape. Tall buildings are prohibited, so as to not impair the view. The unique shape of the mountains can attributed to the fact they are composed of easily dissolved limestone. We did some cave exploring and hiking through the mountains to see some of the unique formations.
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| Li River |
We floated down the Li river to Yangshuo. We were surprised to run into some fellow Texas Aggies on the boat. (We should not have been surprised :-)
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Li River
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The river scene below is the scene on the left is the scene on the 20 yuan.
On board the river vessel, refreshments were kindly offered. Snake wine, a southern China beverage was available. We were informed it makes you very strong. All on board must have felt satisfactorily in their strength, as we saw no takers.
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| Snake Wine |
(Everywhere we go, the kids are asked to be in pictures, I have been trying to keep the camera ready to snap a few myself)
