Day 3 in China : Cave, lakes, Shang Ri La, Theater

• 24 November 2010 (Wednesday)

Today is our third day in China. Today is also our busiest day in China too. We are going to visit many places today. 

We check out and left the hotel and He Zhou right after breakfast. There are many dishes for breakfast. It is an "eat all you can" breakfast. Our first place to visit today is a beautiful lake which is made into a tourist spot. The park guide there dresses in pink traditional clothes talk to us about this place and the hills around us. 

We are divided and are seated on two boats.

The panoramic scenery here is magnificent.
The clear water reflected everything, that is what makes the view so beautiful.  

Can you see Sleeping Beauty Giantess ?

Fisherman taking out the fish caught by one of his fishing birds.
The birds are trained well since young to be loyal to their owner.

Our boat oarman or rowers can row the bamboo boat through this gap.

Our boats or rafts stopped in the middle of the lake to meet these guys.
These men are acting as the singers who compete singing with 刘三姐 Sister San Jie in her movie.
So these men also compete singing with us and our park guide.

This silk ball is awarded to one of our tour group member for singing well.

Caterpillar and spider I found there.

We continued our journey to another tourist spot. This time, a cave. On the way there, hills are a common sight.

We reached the cave park after about 10 minutes. We climbed up the stair to the cave up there.

The wine chamber inside the cave.
Barrels of wines are stored inside here to be kept cool.

The mini Great Wall of China.

Pine tree cone ?

 This device only enables the park guides to switch on the cave lights.
I saw our park guide just scratch something to it and the device is activated.

 We went to this restaurant for lunch after the cave.
My favourite dish here is the sweet yam. It is yam covered in sugary coverings.

After lunch, we are headed to another place to visit. It is called 世外桃源(shi wai tao yuan) or China's Shang Ri La. But on the way there, we stopped by at a Health Centre.

The Health Center is called 永康生活 YongKang Health Care. The health guide brought us into a room and talk to us about 负离子 Anion. She measured the anion in the room with a machine and it turns out to be 50 unit. She said we humans need at least 300 anion unit every time to stay healthy. There are incredibly old people over 100 years old  in China, and they are still living healthily. She said they can live that long because of the high amount of anion they have at their environment. Waterfalls are one of the places that have high dose of anion. The health guide then introduced to us the health products they made from the extracts from this type of rocks.

She said that if we buy their health product - Anion jeweleries , anion statues, anion bed sheets and other things, we can feel more healthier after using it or exposed to is. 

Cute little birds made from the extracts from the rock just now.

Sold for RMB 980, or 980 Yuen.

I did not buy any of their products because it feels like my health depended on it. The thing that I really want from this shop is their anion measuring device, so that I can measure which area have the most anion amount and then I will hang out there regularly.

After viewing at their products, we continued our journey to Shang Ri La. It is located in 阳朔 Yang Shuo. 世外桃源 originally is a Chinese idiom describing about a beautiful place almost like paradise. This Chinese Shang Ri La is a park that has a lake.

It was drizzling when we reached there. The rain and the wind made the weather very cold. That was the coldest place I had ever visited in this trip. We were brought around the lake on a boat by the park guide.  The lake water there is blue and clear. From the boat ride, we get to see traditional Chinese style wooden houses.

We passed by people wearing fake animal clothings, holding sticks and doing their dance. I guess they are the Red Indians of China.

After our boat ride, a lady on the second floor of a building threw a few silk balls to us. She said whoever caught it can have it. In the souvenir shop, some locals are sitting down and working on their Chinese equipments and musical instruments.

After a several more snapshots, we left and headed to our next destination.

More on 世外桃源.

Our next destination is a tea shop. The tea shop is decorated with antiques, tea cups, jars and pots.
This tea shop is called 桂林市帝珍荼叶市场(Gui Lin Shi Di Zhen Cha Ye Shi Chang) Gui Lin Di Zhen Tea marketplace. The tea shop guide brought us inside a room where she talked about the 5 health teas they are selling. Different types of tea help our body in different ways. The five teas she introduced to us are 1.Tian Qi Flower tea, 2. Osmanthus tea, 3. Green Peony tea, 4.Wild Puer tea (Slimming tea), and 5. Old Puer tea. The guide's 3 lady assistants showed us how to make these teas. Unfortunately I did not take any photographs on how they make the tea because photography is not allowed in that room. They also showed us a special tea cup that after pouring the tea inside it, the dragon picture on the tea will change color from black to bright red. This is an old trick I had read from a comic book several years ago. From the book, I know that they use another type of element to make the dragon on the cup. The element they use have lower melting point and hence glows red when heated with hot water, just like black steel ore can turn into molten red lava. After my dad bought some tea and got the color changing dragon tea cup for free gift, we went out for dinner.

And after dinner, we are going to visit a magnificent stage performance in a theater. This theater is built specially for this show, 梦幻漓江 Dreamlike Lijiang. The name of this show is named after one of the river that we are visiting, 漓江 Li Jang river. This show have dancing, acrobatics, balancing, comedy and suspense. This show is really very fantastic, we do not have such performances in Malaysia. The show is about Li Jiang river and the life there.

After the show, we went out and meet with the performers.

Each one of them has a CD about their show just now.

We bought from one of them because videoing inside the theater is prohibited.

After the show, we headed to a hotel here in Gui Lin called 桂林帝苑酒店 Guilin Royal Garden Hotel.

We are staying here for two nights. The day after tomorrow we will leave Gui Lin.