Guilin 1 Arrival (7/27/2012)

Friday, July 27, 2012
We flew from Shanghai to Guilin on China Air, and left over an hour after the scheduled time. I had seen average on-time data for this flight, and they should just reschedule the flight to an hour later!
That meant our guide and driver had been hanging around the airport for a while. But our China Highlights guide, Lele (whose name means "happy smile"), lived up to his name. He seemed to apologize that we had a lady driver, but, hey, all the better for us!
We checked into the Guilin Osmanthus Hotel and were on our own for the evening. Even though it was 8:30 pm, we decided to look for a bite to eat. The night market was nearby, and we found a place that had a picture on the sign of the pork sandwiches we have had. Inside the restaurant, we were handed a menu totally in Chinese, so we had to lure the waitstaff outside to point at the picture.
Expecting just a couple sandwiches, we ended up with the set meal. Started with cold rice noodles with shredded carrots and cucumbers in a spicy soy sauce:

Cold corn broth:

The roujiamo/meat sandwich with pork stuffed in a flatbread:

The entire meal including two cans of beer and a soda cost 31 RMB or $4.86 for two of us!
We wandered through the market to walk off the unexpected full meal:

Insects, etc. in acrylic:

Local minority painted items:

Local minority embroidered items and textiles:

Bacon rock:

Tea and snacks:

In the upper right are a coin banks in the shape of a couple of the local karst mountains.
Personalized fans:

Hulusi/gourd flutes:

Pick your bottle, then pick your scent:

In the bottom right are the iconic green boxes of tiger balm.
Jewelry:

Animal horn items:

These types of combs are sold everywhere by sidewalk vendors:

Red lacquer "car hangs" to hang on the rear view mirror:

View of our hotel (the tall building):

The hotel was located on the Peach Blossom River, not far from where it flows into the Li River.
Go to the Guilin 2 Li River posting.