Touring Guilin!!

Since we had been sigh-seeing all morning, grandma, mommy and baby were extremely tired. They decided to stay in the hotel while my son and I did a self-guided tour of Guilin.

We began our tour directly behind the hotel. Here we found life as the average Chinese person lives it. There were shops of every kind. The one shop that seemed to be in every market place was a bicycle repair shop. Now the shop was not what you would expect to find in America, but resembled more of a junk store for bikes. They did appear, however, to be able to make any repair necessary.

The shop that caught our eyes most, was a pediatric pharmacy. Yes, that is correct. A pharmacy especially for the little ones of the town. The Chinese people, contrary to popular beliefs, are extremely family oriented. In this shop was every herbal remedy that you could imagine and many that you couldn't. These herbal medicines have been used for thousands of years. The pharmacist did things much as they have been done for much of those years. They took the raw herbs and combined them to make the desired remedy.

We can actually attest to their healing abilities. None of us was ever terribly ill, however, we did have our bouts with some stomach discomfort. Our guides were right there with some of the herbal medicines to give us comfort. There were specific remedies for whatever ailed us. They were extremely quick acting.

After touring this part of town, we decided to venture into the business part of town. Getting there we had to take our lives into our own hands. We had to cross three extremely wide and busy streets to get there. The Chinese have not been drivig cars for long, so they are not as efficient as what you would see in New York City, for instance.

The business section consisted of many large modern buildings, but the small open-air booths are what caught our attention. Here, again, you could find anything to buy that you could imagine. There were some touristy items, but the average tourist was southeast Asian, so most of the goods were not what we are used to seeing. This made the shopping much more interesting.

In this setting was the only time that I felt a bit uncomfortable about our situation. One of the hucksters that we were warned against, joined us during our walk. These guys are fluent in English and can talk about any location in the U.S. that you mention. This one even knew some of the local products from our small town at home. He wanted us to go with him to his shop, which was considerably off of the beaten path. Of course, what he was selling was of human origin. We simply told him that we had to meet our family at the end of the market, so after so agonizing moments, he decided to find other customers. This incident isn't very common, but it is good to be aware.

After this excursion, we decided to catch a cab and go back to our hotel. We had had a busy, but interesting day.

The next part of our trip would take us to Guangzhou (Canton). This is where we were told that we would get the best food in China.