Yaoshan

During our last set of school holidays we visited Guilin and Yangshuo. This area is about a two and a half hour flight South of where we live. It was noticeably warmer and more humid (which was welcome after about five months of cold in Shanghai). There was also amazing scenery.

We flew into Guilin very late, arriving in the early am. When we pulled ourselves together the next morning we decided to visit Yaoshan, a mountain on the outskirts of Guilin.

You know the view from the top is going to be pretty good, when this is the view from the car park.

This was taken part-way up on the chairlift. The quality of my shot isn't great, I took it with my phone. There were two options to get up the mountain - walk or chairlift. We took the latter, but we saw plenty of people doing the former.

On the way back down we took toboggans which was really fun! You can see the toboggan track in the above picture.

Getting higher.

That is Mum and Ethan riding in the chairlift.

Besides the view there are attractions to see at the top of the mountain. A temple was built here during the Tang Dynasty.

People tie red ribbons to the trees. The ribbons contain their wishes.

The statue is Emperor Yao Di, for whom the mountain was named.

Heading back down on the chairlift.

Clara and I on the chairlift. After this we switched to the toboggan.

Our attempts to get a family photo. I can't remember what was going on with Clara.

During our time in Guilin and Yanshuo it was 'Tomb Sweeping' time in China. Relatives visit the gravesites of their ancestors. They clean the graves, lay wreaths and leave other items such as paper money and decorative items. They also light firecrackers on the tomb. While we were in Guilin and Yangshuo we heard firecrackers go off very regularly and when we were at high vantage points we could often see the explosions. From Yaoshan we saw/heard firecrackers probaby every five minutes.

As we were driving back to the hotel we took some pictures of the cemeteries..