It is a little while again since I last updated here. Things have been quietly progressing. In many ways progress was made by eliminating things rather than booking things. For other aspects, we have adopted the "wait and see approach".
When we originally started to look into visiting Guilin, there were two things that we thought we had to do. One was a visit to the Longji rice terraces and the other was a river cruise on the Li river. We both spent hours researching possible excursions. We then came to the conclusion that as stunning as the Longji rice terraces are and as much as we would have loved to see them, the excursions on offer were more trouble then they are worth. Essentially to get there from Guilin requires a 6 hour roundtrip by coach. I may still have been tempted, but the more research I did the more I realised that the time spent at the rice terraces is very limited with a maximum of one hour being spent in the scenic area. The rest of the day is spent in some of the local minority villages where the locals sell their handicrafts. So basically it is a glorified and overpriced shopping trip. So we dropped this from the itinerary quite swiftly.
The research of the Li river cruise did not completely fill me with joy either. At least there, we will be treated to some stunning scenery and this will make it worthwhile. Our hotel in Guilin has a tour desk so we will hold off booking a tour and see what they suggest.
One thing that did impress me during the research is Yao Mountain. This is only about 8 miles out a Guilin and has a number of scenic areas, temples and a tea plantation. This can be visited quite cheaply by taxi and I am sure this will feature during our trip.
We are pretty much going to wing Hong Kong. I will definitely visit Hong Kong
Disneyland. The second full day we will play by ear. We may resort to the hop on hop off bus or we may take to public transport. Either way, I am sure we will enjoy it. I am very tempted by a food walking tour on our last day in Hong Kong before flying back home and I may well book this before we go. Another thing I may book ahead of time is a dinner cruise to coincide with the Symphony of Lights show.
Other than this, preparations are going well. I got our embarkation shirts and I am absolutely in love with them:
I also got a t-shirt for Hong Kong Disneyland:
I tried my hand at a very basic design myself:
Here is the finished article:
Other than that, online check in for the cruise is done and the Set Sail passes are ready to print. Our tickets for the flights are now issued and I managed to reserve seats. At some stage I need to print off all the confirmations and other documents. I also need to do something about making magnets. Other than that, I am basically ready apart from the packing.
Corinna