Guilin

Hello,
There is a story on CNN about Guilin. It has some nice photo's.

Here is a Link to it:

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Danny

Guilin is one of those places that as soon as I arrived I could see myself living there. Too bad Xiaoming doesn't like it. I guess I could live in Guilin and commute to Chengdu on the weekends.

I thought Chengdu was a temporary move for you all. How does that city compare to Nanning? We had some friends who live in Sichuan Province come visit us a few Decembers ago. I got the impression from them that it is rather overcast some parts of the year and that it also was fairly damp and also cooler. How is Chengdu affected by all the rain and the mudslides that China is having now?

I don't know what part of Guilin you like. Is it the city or is it the countryside? Last year we took a short trip to see the Red Clif drawings of Hua Shan near Ning Ming. It is south west of Nanning. It was a nice trip. It does not really have the city side of Guilin but it does have some parts of the countryside of Guilin but on a smaller scale. It looks like they are trying to build up the area for tourism but I think they have a long ways to go. I would like to to the rice terrances of Longsheng. I had hope that there was somewhere local to Nanning to see rice terrace farming on the scale that Longsheng has but have never seen any yet.

Chengdu hasn't had any problems from the mudslides or floods this year. Most of the problems have been in the southern part of sichuan province. Biggest problem in Chengdu is the earthquakes but I grew up in California so that doesn't phase me.

I would say the weather in Chengdu is kind of like Seattle. Overcast a lot in the winter and very very damp which makes it feel a lot colder. The summers are hot but nothing like Nanning or Guilin (or Tulsa). I can only imagine mold must be a big problem in the older buildings.

It was supposed to be a temporary assignment, but the workload there is a lot more steady and the weather is better so Xiaoming has decided to stay until we get the visa. I like the countryside around Guilin, but mostly I like the city. Just seems a lot more lively than what I have seen of Nanning but withouth the more hectic pace of Chengdu. But to be fair, I have only ever been around 5 elephant square so it's not a good comparison.

CCTV-9 has a show called Travelogue which is usually pretty interesting.