Guilin

Our first day in China was a long one. We got up and drove almost three hours to take a long hike up 1,000 steps (or so). But the view was amazing.

It's called the Dragon's Backbone. It's the rice terraces of Longji.

It was amazing.

 Rice fields.

 We climbed pretty high on the drive. The city of Guilin is about 500 ft above sea level. The rice terraces range from 1250 ft to 2900 ft. We drove most of it. But we hiked a fair bit also.

 

 The beginning of our path.

 Some of the stairs we hiked.

We stopped halfway up the mountain for lunch. It was a really good lunch.

This was the view from lunch. The fog kept rolling in in waves, giving us glimpses of what we were there to see.

 The view we hiked for. This was part way up.

 The three Arave girls at the top. Yes I know my shirt looks bad in that picture.

 And the reason we hiked up. The fog cleared a bit and we got an amazing view. Absolutely stunning.

 We went to the section that is called Seven Stars and Moon. There are eight top terraces - seven small ones called stars and one larger one, the moon.

 When seven American women pose for a picture - the entire crown at the top of the mountain joins in and takes pictures of us too. It's those young ones with blond hair.

 As we were leaving this woman was combing out her hair for some other tourists. They want you to pay them in order to take pictures of their hair. I didn't pay. She gave me a dirty look. But oh well. The other people paid her. The part where she is holding her hair - she another pony tail - probably the one she cut off at age 16 (see below) and she wraps it up with her other hair.

These woman don't have gray hair and they cut their hair once in their lives -at age 16. Then they wear it turned like this around their head after they get married. It was pretty long.

We took a different way down the mountain and took more time to take pictures on our way down. We saw some things that make me very glad my life is as convenient as it is.

 For 10$ you can ride up the mountain in a chair.

 This sweet lady - probably very old - was weaving shoes.

 This cute puppy was very glad that someone talked to him. He was very cute and excited.

Some of the many stalls that line the path up and down the mountain. That is her hair - and only hair - wrapped around her head.

The next day we did the Li River cruise - it's where Kung Fu Panda was "filmed." It was amazing. My mom told me it was the highlight of the trip for her.