Starbucks! The most beautiful sight for Courtney in China.

Although we flew into Shanghai before starting our tour of the Hangzhou-Suzhou area and drove back there after the tour, we didn’t really have a whole lot of time to spend in this famed jewel on the coast. After dinner and a quick walk on the bund the night before, we spent this morning seeing a couple places in Shanghai. We started with a trip to Yuyuan Garden, another one of the very cute gardens that are a trademark of this region’s architecture. What was most exciting, however, was that we spotted a Starbucks right outside the garden, and Courtney was able to run in and get her first cup of Starbucks coffee in China. We also picked up a trademark Shanghai snack — little dragon buns — at a stall outside the garden on our way out. That stall is famous for these buns, which are actually more like pork dumplings. We got a freshly steamed batch, and they were gone very quickly.

Nanjing Road. Think mega-mall, with all expensive, Western brands.
We then visited Nanjing Road, the most famous shopping street in Shanghai. We spent about half an hour walking around there, and it certainly was hopping. However, I found it to be rather uninteresting. In all honesty, if you were looking for an authentic Chinese shopping experience, this would be the last place you would go. It’s filled with huge department stores and boutique shops selling all Western brands, often for much more than what the same products would cost in the United States. I certainly didn’t travel so far to do the kind of shopping I could’ve done in the local mall back home.

We then headed to the airport for our next destination — Guilin, which is famous for its natural scenery. There is a Chinese saying: Guilin’s scenery is best among all under heaven. We weren’t going to get to see too much of that scenery today, however, as our flight arrived too late for any sightseeing. Of course, we didn’t need to go to any designated tourist attraction to see the sights we went to Guilin for. As soon as our van left the airport and hit the road to Guilin, we could see the karst hills that the region is known for. Villages sit at the foot of towering karst mountains covered in lush greenery, even in the depth of winter. Even the city of Guilin itself is situated right at the foot of various peaks and hills.

Our tour guide Lewis, a member of the Zhuang ethnic minority that resides in the region, told us that there is a saying among the people of Guangxi Province, where Guilin is situated: You go to Beijing to look at walls. You go to Xi’an to look at graves. You go to Shanghai to look at skyscrapers. You come to Guilin to look at the mountains, and if you think about it, it really is true in a lot of ways. Also, he pointed out something that we definitely noticed during our two-day stay in the area: Things move at a more leisurely pace here, and for the better. After more than 10 days of being constantly on the go, running from one place to the next, and having every minute of the day filled with some sort of scheduled activity, our stay in Guilin was like a vacation away from our vacation.

After dinner, we took in what was called a “ethnic minority song and dance show” on our itinerary. It turned out to be part dance and part acrobatic performance, and it was very interesting, especially the acrobatic elements (is the human body supposed to bend like that?). Then came the most relaxing and fun part of the day: We took a stroll down the main street in Guilin, one side of which becomes a pedestrian-only shopping street at night. We got out there a bit late and most of the big stores were closed, but there was a long row of tents hoarding various souvenir-type stuff, along with stalls selling local cuisines. We walked along the tents for a while, bought nothing, and sampled some freshly squeezed sugar cane juice (the guy sticks a long sugar cane pole in a device, presses a button, and out comes delicious juice). It was the most relaxing evening we had on this trip.