Day 9 - Guilin

Our first night in Guilin we could not get our data to work. We’ve been using hotel wifi all trip with a VPN. The VPN was blocked at this hotel though so we couldn’t get on Facebook, Google, or any social media. I could still check email, even my work email that is in a special app with extra encryption, and I could text, but that’s about it. On the second day I didn’t try to use the hotel WiFi and just used my $10/day Verizon international plan and everything worked fine even without the VPN, so I guess either works. If you want to use hotel WiFi you need a VPN, or you can use your state side international cell service just like you would anywhere else.

Breakfast today felt like real China! It was packed and everyone was pushing and shoving. All the tables we full so there was no place to sit. We should have gone down earlier. This area of China is where the locals vacation, and this hotel is geared towards them. The breakfast selections were very Asian too. I ended up with just a croissant and Coral had a doughnut. This was not our favorite breakfast.

From there we went to the Li River for our day cruise. The hotel sent boxed lunches with us with sandwiches. The scenery on the river was pretty. They call these the gum drop mountains. I’ve been putting sunscreen on everyday but today it wasn’t enough and I’m a little burnt now.

Our River Cruise lasted until about 1:00pm and then we went to the market on West St. We were each given 20RMB and told to buy a White elephant gift. Coral picked out a mirror compact with cactus on it and I chose 2 small prints. Coral and I both picked out a print for ourselves too. I also bought for myself a framed embroidered dragon for about $30. It started at 600RMB but I got it down to 220RMB. 

Our bus back to the hotel was about an hour and then we had about an hour of free time at the hotel. Our group dinner was in the hotel bar, we had it all to ourselves. They had a barbecue dinner for us. It was ok. Then we went up to a conference room and did our white elephant exchange which garnered a lot of laughs. Coral ended up with her cactus compact. I had my two prints but they were stolen from me. Then I ended up with a carved rose necklace. The couple who bought it said it was bone, which I’m sure the vendor told them, but it was plastic. One shop also tried to sell us jewelry, when I asked what the metal was she said 18k! Ha! It felt like a something you would get at Claire’s. Definitely not 18k, not even 1k! 

The kids got to stick around and watch a movie. I went back to the room to pack again. We had to have our bags out by 10:30 for our morning flight. 

Total Fitbit steps for the day: 7,808