Guilin - Day 8, 9 and 10

We take a boat through the Li River, one of the most beautiful stretches of Guilin to Yangshuo. It is a small town propped by tourism. Our experience here is mixed as the travel agent we used to make bookings turns out to be a petty sort of person and our supposed 4 star accommodations are more like a 2 star. That part of the trip was the most disappointing. For the readers of this blog, the travel agent we used was Lotus Travel Inc, they do alot of trips for families with adopted children. From our experience and how we were treated, highly un-recommending them.

We did take the kids to see the river show which has a beautiful stage among the surrounding mountains, it has a cast of over 600 people which are mainly local fishermen by day. By this time 2 adults are not feeling so good and with our hotel room being a pit, we head back to the city and check into the Shangri la, which is newly opened. Along the way we do stop at to watch the river boats catch fish for their owners. The birds have a string around their neck which prevent the fish from going down.

Our last day, the kids attend Wushu one last time, by which time, they have started to make friends, esp. Nate, whom several Chinese boys would come up to him.

China is really quite “rough” but the discrepancy between the Shangrila (where we spent a nite because of the dispute with the travel agent) and how the locals live is really hard to describe. At dinner time, the coffee house was booked out as the rich Guiliners came out to eat in the cool air conditioned hotel, it was not cheap but they were full. In the morning, I walk across the street to see the vegetable farm of the farmer and chatted with him, he had such a beautiful crop of vegetables. The kids had a great time but the adults are worn down and really looking forward to home, I think with kids a max of 7 days in China is enough, 5 is probably about right.

The flight we took was a Guilin - KL flight, it was raining when we left and we stayed on at Terry's house for the night before heading back to Singapore. The kids had a great time there too, 6 kids under a roof! Good home cooked food, dad brought durians... nice conversation with Terry and his new stories. Breakfast of yummy nasi lemak before the drive home which went by quickly when you have good friends to chat with.

Guilin - Day 7

ok the pictures don't quite match the blog postings...

We should have had a stay at home day, the kids were still recuperating from the day before. We tried to do a low activity like go to the art museum, advertised as the largest in the South Western region but they had no exhibition and was not opened, apparently it could be closed for months! Unbelievable.

We decided to go to the 7 Star Park and it was a lovely park except the kids were really tired. We did a cave (which gave us a sense of what the war was like when people had to camp out there during the bomb raids), missed the famous vegetarian restaurant, but did see Yueya Shan, where my granddad lived. We missed the Panda and several other “hot” attractions. The brochure of the place had “hot” marked on it, at first we could not figure out why, was it hotter there? But it meant more popular. The other funny sign I saw was Export for Exit and I had not realized before that the Chinese word for both is the same.

The afternoon was Wushu again, we can hear the kids laughing and doing their Kung fu shouts. Apparently Ike got reprimanded about 5 times for not listening with a whack on his posterior, I wonder if the Chinese discipline works or he will just turn more rebellious, he didn’t seem to mind and he even said they played with the other kids a cat and mouse game in class. Wish they installed glass where we could watch them and they can’t see us.

It finally rained, quite a heavy downpour too. We ran for our taxi in the rain and got wet, it was fun for the kids. The lift had broken down, luckily it was fixed by the time we got back. The kids sometimes get over tired and a bit hard to sleep or if we time it right, they just collapse. Us adults? This is like a marathon, we also just collapse every night.

Guilin - Day 6

Allan heads home… we go to Gudong National Park, it’s about an hour out of the city. The city is small and everywhere is rather close. There are a few places that seems really lovely like the rice terraces but they are 150 km away, just too far with kids. Maybe when they are older.

Gudong National Park is highly recommended, it is just lovely, there is very minimal plastic, its well kept, its almost like a Japanese park. They have thought out the park well such that kids don’t get bored. We took a boat ride an they could feed these large and colorful carp in the water. Small islands that we pass have locals doing local things like washing their clothes or making cloth or singing the mountain songs.

Then as we climb the waterfall area, the water is cool, there are 2 waterfalls that the kids are too small for but 4 others that they accomplished quite easily. We had to buy local straw slippers but they were very comfortable and pretty, will bring those back for their school in the dress up section.

Coming down from the mountain, there were butterflies, lots of shaded trees, you could do a firefox as well but in sitting swing position or a slowish roller coaster ride downhill. They had a suspension bridge and also a butterfly park (that we had to miss as it was a big detour for the kids). We miss Allan as action man would have loved this place. We eat a lot of cut fruit and vege’s and cucumbers such that Ike’s poo came out green!

Our try with 18 year old tutors, 4 boys with our 4 kids in the afternoon was not too successful, I think for the older children, Nate and Sage, they were good at following instructions and had more language in their belt but the younger ones, like Ike needs to “get to know” a person before anything can happen. Sage and Jonas are also a calmer pair than Nate and Ike... I think we have scarred the 18 year olds from ever having kids.

Guilin - Day 5

We go to the Tiger and Bear Park, apparently there are like 1,500 tigers here. The animals do not look happy in the heat and although they have banned putting in a live buffalo for the tiger to kill, the shows they put on are also rather sad. Not recommended to go. Though there were 2 interesting things, one was a mountain goat performing a tightrope walk and Ike really loved the camels, I think his two favorite animals are the camel and the giraffe.

The afternoon – the kids head to their Wushu classes and in their white uniforms. They seem to be able to do a 100 minute class without much problem, sometimes when the curtains are not closed well, we can kind of look in but otherwise we can only hear them from the outside. The class is about 30 kids. Our kids come out showing us a few high kick moves and Sage wants to come back for the whole semester!

Guilin - Day 4

In the morning I head out to the local market, I can’t seem to find the path to get to the vege fields that I can see from the apartment. On the way to the local market as I zip to find the path, I also find older apartments that do not have toilets inside their homes, people have their toilets outside and they lock their own units.

From the market, I see the new Shangri-La hotel… as they are new, their rates are also quite reasonable…. Oh but they have a swimming pool... the heat seems to sap alot out of us, having said that before we arrived it was rain rain rain.

We head to Yaoshan, a mountain that my granddad had climbed back in the 1940s when he lived in Guilin for a year. Well guess how we got up? By ski lift, German make – mind you. We had cooler weather up in the mountains, beautiful, beautiful scenery and guess how we come down… by luge! The kids loved it so much that we headed up again – again luckily at Chinese prices. The luge is long and really quite fun.

After a rest, in the evening, we head to Gui Lake (on an open air scooter that looks like an open van) where the local’s go to swim. The water is a jade green and we get swimming tubes for the kids. They look really nice in their colorful tubes and luckily with Allan there, he goes in with them. The locals crowd round to see Allan throw the kids into the water, they are surprised that they can swim at a young age and then I realize how come the floaties for the kids here are so large!!! They are made for older non-swimmers. Allan needless to say is jumping into the water in his action shots again.

Guilin - Day 3

We head out to the museum in Guilin to meet some of the people porpor knows. These people had been very helpful in helping us find Huang Yao material. They will be building a new one soon. The old one had models of old Guilin, some of the tribes that live here.

The temperature under the large trees was so much cooler. Allan started to look around to do action shots, where he would jump in the air, he is funny and the kids love him. The kids played with all sorts of sand toys but instead of sand, they use a type of husk.

We could not find the guy in charge of the paddle boats and as it was nearing lunch time we headed across the street to eat at a restaurant that faced a lovely big pool of lotus. Too bad the lotus leaves were not reachable as it would have been fun to see the water run about the leaves.

In the afternoon, the kids headed for their first Wushu class with other local kids, Ike was tired and it seems did 2/3s of the 100 minute class. Then we played catching on the grounds. We also bought them the white shirt and pants with the Children’s Palace written on it. We get a lot of stares as Nate and Ike are not quite Chinese looking and although they have similar haircuts as the local boys, their hair is a bit curly and seems to stick to their heads while the local boys hair just stand straight up.

Guilin - Day 2

The tutor we had “booked” turns out to be a 13 year old child! Not the 18 year old that I had expected with some experience in teaching. Sigh… we anyway head out to the Children’s Palace, a center that was set up by one of the Soong sisters. They are set up all over China and this one had a confusing array of classes for kids from 3 up to 18, from ping pong, wushu, calligraphy, English, Chinese painting, cartooning to dancing, musical instruments etc. We met with the headmaster and she got us a teacher to show us 3 classes. One of them was Wushu, where the older kids showed off their bamboo stick and sword skills, one particular fatty boy was very cute, he was a gymnast and could move very fast.

We paid for the whole semester but would probably take up only 4 classes. Luckily the fees are very affordable. If we stayed the whole semester, it could be fun to be in the foreign speaking class.

We met a nice taxi guy that became our guide for the rest of the trip and we went to one of the caves. Guilin was under the ocean million years ago and has topography like Vietnam, lots of limestone caves. The Chinese however like to light up their caves in many multi colored lights with strange sounding names for the staglatite and staglamite formations. We manage to buy some fruit on the way back. The amount of tourists that trek through is quite large such that the cave floors are paved. Nothing like the caves in S. Africa where we have to duck around and the floors are natural, no fancy, tacky, colored lights there too…

After a nap and avoiding the heat (its hot here! ut apparently it was raining a lot the week before), we take the public double decker bus to the popular area in the city. We manage to find a good sale on Chinese workbooks and headed to a recommended place for dinner that turned out to be very typically Chinese – lots of people and very noisy.

Guilin - Day 1

Decided to take the kids to Guilin this year, they are nearing 4 and 6 and I wanted them to have some exposure to things Chinese. Although the accent here is considered by the northerners as below par… many speak very good Putonghua, either that or my ear is not tuned enough to tell who speaks it well or badly.

We arrive on a Sunday, the city is quite small, has a population of about 700,000 to 900,000 depending on who you ask. We stay in a local community and near a Walmart. We have come with Lilin and kids and its nice that Allan has decided last minute to join us.

At Walmart, we see this baby in a little piece of red cloth underwear thing with no pants on. Many of the kids here have pants with a big hole to allow them easy access to the call of nature and to save on diapers. Well this baby’s mom at least put a towel on the shopping cart seat, otherwise I’d feel bad for his bum bum! I am getting quite addicted to the thick yogurt that is sold here.

From our apartment, I can see that there are vegetable farms at the back and hope to be able to get to them. The kids see these fat chickens and start to chase them everywhere. Someone asks Ike a question and he says in Chinese I am 4 and my brother is 6. A good start.

Goldhill Community Garden

I am so happy for these guys, they entered for the first time, their community garden and won top prize, they invited me to the big celebration party they had today and I took lots of photos for them while they charmed the press.

We get alot of cuttings from this garden for the CNIS garden. I think our challenge is going to be maintainence, these guys have lots of people to work on theirs. I wonder if we would be able to open ours up so that the community could come into our garden as well?

Marine Barrage

Uncle Peter was in town and we took the boys on a cycle in the East Coast, while heading back we decide to check out the Marine Barrage since I have seen the signs but not seen what it is. Shook Fun had told us a long time ago how wonderful it is but unless you are coming from the East Coast, the other way there are no signs and I didn't really know how to get there.

When we got there, the kids had a ball, a big water park for them to play in, though its not colorful and some people did not know kids were allowed to play in it, its an interesting architectural building with lots of people flying kites, so today we went back with our kits. Bubbi, look out for kites in Canada, they are into it now...

A friend just told me there is an exhibition run by the Public Utilites Board and on Newater... ie the recycled water that Singapore does to reduce the dependance of water from Malaysia.

Fruit Stall on Geylang Lorong 21

Everytime we head to Jin's place, I would swerve and buy fruit's from this guy called, Ah Yu, who speaks to the kids in Chinese. So the kids have rambutan while Ah Yu is packing the apples, pears, dragon fruit, kiwi, strawberries and whatever else is in season (except durian). The tables are set up so his customers can eat the durians on the spot and not bring the offending fruit home.

Big Belly Ike

Well actually his belly isn't so big, its just the angle of the lens...

He picked a fun Chinese book for tonight, its about guessing what the item is. There was one, I have a big belly and thick skin, I am strange, I make no sound when no one hits be but the more you do the more happy I am... the boys got it as a drum. Here was another tricky one that the boys got... I have hair on top and on the bottom, in between there is a big big grape, in the evenings the hairs will bump into each other.... (its a body part).

School Photo's

I think the photographer must have taken these over time as the boys go from quite bald to having some hair.

School is out.... I took the boys to the Chinese doctor today to see if I can boost their immunity, nate for his rash. They were really well behaved and played with their toys and played together, not fighting. They even helped the Chinese doctor remove the glass bubble things from my back tho nate seemed a bit freaked out by the acupuncture needles. They got a massage and no needles.

Nate's graduation from Kindergarden

The school held a big graduation show with gowns and all!

Looks like the school is growing, although slowly and I need to start my crusade on getting math taught in Chinese.