A Few Days in Guilin

Last weekend, I traveled to Guilin 桂林, located in southern China, to witness firsthand some of the most beautiful scenery China has to offer and for some much needed R&R. It was as gorgeous as everyone says, but it was also incredibly hot. It reminded me a lot of a Minnesotan summer, that is, hot, muggy, sweaty, with tons of mosquitoes (This did not make me homesick, by the way). Luckily for us, it was overcast the first few days we were there, which tempered the steaming weather and only really heated up on the last day. Here's a link to the large amount of pictures I took there. For those of you short on time, I'll skim over the highlights.

People from Guilin (and southern China in general) eat all sorts of crazy things: snakes, lizards, monkeys, etc. Fortunately, we avoided eating all of those things, but we did catch sight of rats being barbecued for human consumption.

Here's a close up: (Not for the faint of heart)

In addition to that tasty morsel, I was able (finally) to capture photographic evidence of some of the most ridiculous customs of this crazy country. (Being a tourist is the perfect cover for taking pictures of strangers without asking their permission)

1.
Baby bums. These are those crotchless pants I was talking about earlier. Yes, it's ridiculously cute and yes, I will miss it dearly.

2.Babies/kids urinating wherever it's convenient, particularly true for young boys. This little guy was peeing into a puddle on this rock, his mother looking on proudly.

3.The ever-present man belly. It's totally acceptable for men, in hot weather, to pull up their shirt and show off their bulging gut. You can see this kind of thing all over the streets (accompanied by rolled up pant legs if it's really hot). And usually, as you can tell from the picture above, the results are not pleasant.