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MeznG. In the air, on the road, river or sea again
I must say that this is the most relaxed land tours we have done. Our departure time from Yangshuo was 9.30am and we drove through the country side back to Guilin. For some of the trip Autumn our local Guilin guide was talking about her life in China. She taught us how to count to 5 in Chinese. We then had a quiet hour or so drive to Guilin and the South China Sea Pearl Museum. Here we were greeted by a very enthusiastic Chinese lady with a well rehearsed spiel about the pearls before we were shown into a large showroom. The showroom was divided into 3 sections according to quality and price of the pearls. I believe everyone in the group bought at least 1 item except for us. We bought a coffee. The most spent on one item was just over £250 by the young English couple Bethan and Karl. She bought a beautiful triple strand of pearl necklace. It originally had a jade stone in the middle but she didn't like that so they took it all apart and re strung it as we watched. It's quite a job as every pearl is individually knotted onto the strand. The ladies are very adept at rethreading and knotting though. After the Pearl museum it's off to lunch. We certainly are well fed on this trip. Always a banquet style Chinese meal with so many dishes. It's AFL grand final day so wifi in the restaurant is available so we can keep track of the scores. From what I can gather it would have been a bit one sided. We have been together as a group for nearly a week now and we are very good at looking out for each other and everyone mixes in very well. From Australia we have Nigel and he is traveling with his mum Rosa, they are from Melbourne. Two ladies from Sydney, Dorothy and Barbara, another 2 ladies from Brisbane Chris and Brooke, Graeme and Ros from Sydney and Ken and Marion from Adelaide. The Brits are Bethan and Karl, Bethan's dad Andrew, Joy and David, Mark and Monica, Bill and Anne, Ian and Angela, and Sandra and her daughter Rachel. The three from the USA are friends Alfreda from New Jersey and Rosette from New York and Donovan also from New York. After lunch we have a little bit of time to fill in so we went to a park with a lake and bridges and nice gardens to gave a bit of a walk around. It's a very hot and humid day again today but it's quite pleasant in the shade of the big trees. There is an 800 year old Banyan tree in this park. It's Saturday and we see 2 brides having their photos taken in different parts of the park. Back on the bus it's off to the airport for our 2 hour flight to Xian. It's so funny as we are given a goody bag before we board the plane incase we don't get enough food during the flight. We each have a sandwich, packet of potato chips, banana and a small pack of oreo's! We say goodbye to Autumn at this point. We arrive in Xi'an around 2 hours later about 7.30pm and here we meet with our local guide whose name is Ding which in Chinese means 'great' It's pouring with rain and to avoid a 20 minute walk across to the carpark with our luggage, Ding has asked the bus driver to pick us up close to the terminal. Buses are prohibited in this area but ours is not the only one there but for some reason we draw the attention of an over zealous police officer. He threatens the driver with a loss of points if he does not leave immediately and tells them that we should get off the bus and take our luggage across the car park. There is a lot of angry yelling, all of the men get off the bus to help load our luggage so we can get going but still this police officer is insisting that he us going to penal use the driver. Vivian tried her best to negotiate with the officer to no avail, so what else does a girl do but burst into tears and cry very loudly! The police officer backed off and we were allowed to leave. You go girl! It's a 40 minute drive from the airport to our hotel so on the way Ding gives us a bit of history of Xi'an. This is the home of the Terracotta Warriors and it is the ancient capital of China. There is a lot of history here. Our hotel is amazingly beautiful, the rooms are enormous and exceeds our expectations big time. Early start tomorrow as we have a full day of sightseeing. Hopefully the rain holds off but it won't matter either way.
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