Lost Guilin Entries! aka Guilin #3!

ok, because of that surprise trip to Shanghai last weekend, I never finished my Guilin (桂林) entries...  ( after the Li River cruise presented here)

The cruise was Saturday morning,  after which we arrived at the town of Yangshou.  Since it was raining on and off still, we decided to pass on the optional day tour...   instead we got to spend about an hour in this lovely tourist trap of a town before heading back towards Guilin City...

先週末上海へ行ったから、桂林の旅行のブログまだ書いて終わらなかった！ごめん！これは第三部！船の後！ヤンショウ町で船から下りました：

I'm not quite sure what to make of Yangshuo,  it definitely feels more commercialized than when I was here in 2002 (when I already felt it was a tourist trap made for foreign tourists),  and it really is a one-horse town... a few blocks off the main tourist street and it turns into just another dinky Chinese rural town... 

but it is situated in some great scenery...    I'm worried that this is become saturated too (already they're saying there's too many trucks and tour buses driving on the local roads and that its not safe to bicycle there anymore... but then again they may just be saying that to get you to take the tour bus...

I ended up buying a Guilin photo book from some lady that came up to me outside the KFC while we were waiting for our bus...  normally I don't buy things from people like that, but she was nice and friendly and had a kid with her... and I managed to talk her down from 50rmb to 15 (~US$2).  When I told my mom how little I paid for the book the Thai guy from the tour group who paid $20 on the boat for the same type of book started cracking up...

このところ観光人「トラプ」から、あまり好きじゃなかった！その後桂林市帰った時、セィルクファクトリーへ止まった。。。僕達何も買なかったけど、ちょっと直りました。。。

On the way back was the requisite stop at a 'factory outlet'...  in this case it was a 'silk factory'...  I usually detest this kind of institutionalized rip-off tourism (especially cause I'd never, ever buy anything at a place i'm being taken by a tour guide who's getting a commission for sure on every purchase... ) but at least this one was educational...

I think in this place they basically just sit around in the dark waiting for a van full of tourists to show up and then turn everything on... 

the sales woman explained how they take those white things (silk cocoons) and they can turn them into either thread or sheets...

If the cocoon has more than one silk worm in it, it can't be unravelled into a single thread, so they instead stretch them out into  sheets of silk thread...  first they soak them in hot water and then go through several steps til they're stretched out as seen above...

then next you get 3 friends and you start pulling...  and then repeat that like 100 times and you have yourself a 100 layer king or queen size silk quilt..

(yes, apparently its no problem to stretch a single cocoon into a king sized sheet of silk... )

From the looks of it,  this process is repeated millions of times by teams of old Guangxi women working in factories, because there was no shortage of stock in quilts in their showroom...

The saleswoman was unintentionally hilarious... in addition to explaining how they make the quilts, she also explained to us the fantastic properties of silk...  apparently its good for both your skin and your allergies and much better than down and wool for bedding in cold environments (and warm environments and dry environments and wet environments too!)    I asked her 'does it cure cancer too?'  but she didn't understand my dry humor). 

The prices weren't all that reasonable... like US$100 or more for a decent thickness queen or King...    But the Thai guys' wives went nuts and bought like 5 quilts and a bunch of other stuff...  wasted a lot of time! :-(

Last up for the day,  the hotel's 'waterfall show'...  the hotel we stayed at was called the 'Li Jiang Waterfall Hotel' ( website 桂林漓江大瀑布酒店)... you may assume that is because its located near a waterfall or something.... but you'd be wrong!  its because the hotel IS a waterfall! 　最後は僕たちのホテル。。。ホテルは実はWaterfallです！

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTi8UVWce1M

Yes, thats right, they have giant tanks of water on the roof or something and every night at 8pm they do a waterfall show...  why?  I don't know...  because they can...

Here's some rapid fire shots I did w/ my camera too, you can see the waves progressing down the side of the hotel over time:

It got them in the Guiness book...  i guess it pays for itself with the extra tourism...

ok, more Guilin tomorrow!