September 2, 2025
We were up at 4:15am to get organized and leave for airport again by 5am. The hotel packed elaborate breakfast bags with to-go with cups of orange juice and yogurt with questionable lids on top of paper bags filled to the brim with food. We scrambled to get to check-in, feed the kids and dig through the breakfast boxes that included salad with dressing and the multiple beverages which ended up being a huge mess.
While going through security, we unfortunately had to hand over all of our external batteries as China has a new rule that requires all external batteries to have a “ccc” (China Compulsory Certification) to be allowed on airplanes. A huge bummer as the kids’ older iPads are losing battery lifespan.
While the kids and Kyle sat at the gate, I went in search of coffee, breakfast and snacks. There were no Western restaurants in our terminal except for a Tim Horton’s. I ordered a flat white which ended up as 16oz milk with a splash of coffee. I also found a Lawson’s convenience store to get snacks for the flight. I used google translate to buy milk for Len but ended up buying another yogurt drink that he hated.
On landing in Guilin, we met our guide Michael who will be with us for 3 days. We then drove 60 minutes to Longsheng, paid the park entrance fee then drove another 30 minutes up the mountain to the last stop for cars. There, we boarded an open air cart and drove another 10 minutes up the mountain to arrive at our hotel. Len had a hard time listening during the drive and at a restroom stop at a restaurant, we told Len, “you’re going to have to stay at this restaurant to wash dishes.” Then Ollie goes, “and we’re gonna come here for dinner and the dishes BETTER be clean!!”
We had lunch at our hotel and while Ollie was happy to see pork dumplings on the menu, Len barely ate his fried rice. Kyle and I had American-ish Chinese food (mapo tofu, sichaun green beans, spicy beef.) We noticed snake liquor on the menu and made a note to ask Michael about this when we met up again. After lunch, we went back to the room for naps but both kids refused. We didn’t give them their iPads so were rather noisy and ended playing a game where they licked each other to turn into dragons. Kyle and I managed a bit of sleep and we went downstairs to meet Michael at 4pm to go explore Ping’an village together.
The air was still super humid out but temps had thankfully dropped a bit. We started our hike at the top of the village and walked around the upper rim before descending into the village itself. There were tons of different plants and crops that Michael pointed out to us including huge pumpkins, ginger, squash that would be dried into loofah, lo han fruit, passion fruit and of course rice. The boys were also super interested in the bamboo that was growing everywhere.
Len snacked on this dried corn that I bought in Turkiye— I thought it would be like corn nuts but ended up more closely resembling animal feed. He loved it. We also saw some big bugs including huge spiders and large rhino beetles.
In the village, we stopped at a restaurant to learn how to make bamboo rice. We didn’t know what that even meant until we got inside to see the set up. We started by filling two pieces of bamboo with soaked rice and pieces of taro, carrot, and pork. Once filled, a small corn cob was placed in the top to keep the steam in and the bamboo pieces were placed directly into a wood fire. The bamboo was rotated every few minutes and the rice was cooked in a half hour. The boys loved to see the bamboo chopped open with a huge knife and both enjoyed the sticky rice inside. Michael told us that rice harvesters would pack these bamboo sticks with them when they left in the morning and then make a small fire in the fields to cook themselves a portable warm meal.
While walking through Ping’an, we saw plenty of stray cats but one super cute tiny puppy. After giving her a ton of attention and pets, the puppy followed us through town for a bit. Since we had descended all the way into the main part of the village, we had to climb the steps to get out and back to our hotel. The climb required a few stops and power-ups (mentos) but the boys did really well.
When we got back to the hotel, no one was hungry yet for dinner so we instead went back to the room. The boys opted to watch a show, eat a snack and then go to sleep. Len didn’t even make it 10 minutes into the show before passing out. Kyle and I got hungry later in the evening and ended up getting food from the restaurants hotel for dinner. We also stayed up for a bit and battled with the slow internet trying to catch up on our very delinquent journal posts.
