Today, I would like to share some pictures from my family trip to Guilin.

By the way, my friend in the US messaged me that Guilin and Kumamoto, my hometown, have been friendship cities for over 40 years. I didn’t know until she told me.

Here are the places that we visited during our vacation. By clicking the links, you can see which sightseeing plans we went to.

Link →Longji rice terraces & minority villages private day tour

Link→1-Day Guilin Tour to Reed Flute Cave, Xianggong Hill, Bamboo Boat and Night Show

 We first visited the Longji rice terraces.

These terraces have another name, Dragon’s Backbone. These beautiful rice terraces were built by ethnic minorities, the Yao and Zhuang tribes, about 670 years ago.

When we were about to hike down the mountain, we were recommended to try on these Yao traditional clothes. We went back to the main area and tried on the clothes as our memory of visiting these terraces.

I was a little bit surprised when I saw my husband’s hat. But immediately I said “Wow! You look so cool!” We were in the center of attention by people around us.

We were instructed how to make poses for the pictures by a local camera person. It was a fun experience. The printed picture was about $3.

The picture above was taken in the Philippines when we visited Baguio city, which is located northern Philippines. We also tried their traditional clothing when we visited. Look, again my husband’s hat looks so good on him!😊

Looking closer at these rice fields, I could see the rice plants swaying in the wind. It was nice weather too. We went to the top of the rice terraces by car, and we took about 2 hours to walk down the hill.

We had lunch at a local restaurant on the way down the terraces. We had glutinous rice, some chicken, and vegetables cooked slowly in bamboo.

A staff at the restaurant opened this cooked bamboo with a big knife. The rice was so good.

Next, we visited a village of the Yao ethnic minority.

The women in this tribe only cut their hair once in their lifetime, around the age of 18. They keep that cut hair wrapped with their remaining hair for the rest of their life.

They welcomed us with their beautiful voice and songs.

Having long hair to the Yao symbolizes long life and prosperity.

They don’t use shampoo, instead they use fermented rice water which is cooked with some citrus skins and medical herbs

Their hair looks so beautiful, strong, and thick!

I learned that the young generation of this area has been leaving the town to get better job opportunities. However, the government is supporting the town financially to support tourism and also to protect the Yao’s unique culture.

By the way, we didn’t see male Yao during our visit.

Reed Flute Cave is one of the landmark tourist attractions in Guilin. The cave is formed by limestone. It is also called “Cave for state guests” because often VIPs are invited to this cave during their visits to Guilin. It is hard to see with only my pictures however how this place was magnificent. This cave was under the sea 180 million years ago.

This cave looked like “Statue of Liberty”. It was fun exploring with our imagination.

Does it look like a tiger roaring?

Next we went for Li river rafting. The view from the Li river can be seen on the back of the Chinese 20 yuan bill. The ride took about 40 minutes. It was cool to see that the local people were fishing on boats.

We could ride on the boat by ourselves, as it looked like each family could get their own boat. My children were falling asleep when we reached the end of the ride.

Refreshed with the popsicles!

This is a bowl of winter melon soup that we had for lunch.

Sun and Moon Pagodas, which were originally built during the Tang dynasty (618 to 907). They were reconstructed in 2001. We went up to the top floor of the Moon Pagoda.

There were so many interesting wooden carvings in the pagodas. My daughters loved guessing the story of each carving. Later, one of my Chinese friends, who has knowledge of these arts texted me that this picture above specifically talks about students who are skipping classes. L0L

My daughter loves taking pictures with her camera. This camera was gifted from Santa a few years ago. She is curious especially about designs and shapes that she finds outside, thinking about why they wanted to design them like this. This camera has so her many memories, like when she visited her grandparents and played with her cousins in Japan. Also our trips to Spain and the US visiting her families.

The girls were looking at these kitties for long time. hehe

The last place that we visited was a water live performance at Li river.

“Impression Sanjie Liu” is a night outdoor performance with 600 local performers, and is held on the Li liver surrounding karst mountains as the stage and backdrop. It is a 70 minute show. We enjoyed the colorful clothing that the performers wore for every scene and traditional songs as well. It was truly a beautiful show.

At the last part of the performance, some of the performers were throwing something to the audience. Luckily, one of them dropped in front of my daughter’s feet. It was a charm and had embroidery saying “Peace(平安)”

It was a fun trip!

Thank you for reading my blog!