Summary of Day 2:
Guangzhou South Railway Station
Yangshuo
West Street
Impression Liu San Jie
We woke up bright and early on Day 2 to catch our train to Yangshuo, a county and resort town in southern China’s Guangxi region.
But first, we tried to famous 银记肠粉 right below the hotel for breakfast!
The changfen is smooth indeed; not the best I've tasted, but its good enough as we needed to rush for the train at 8.24am lol.
银记肠粉
Guangli Rd, Tianhe Qu, Guangzhou Shi, Guangdong Sheng, China, 510620
Price: CNY 40 for all the food above
I had checked the metro app prior to the trip and it said that the journey from our hotel to the Bus station was about 30min. Little did we expect that it took 1h.
We practically SPRINTED with our baggages to collect our high speed rail tickets and onto the boarding platform. Luckily I had left my huge luggage at Liling's house the day before and only carried a handcarry bag.
The station was HUGE, and I mean HUGE. Getting from one end to the other end took a very long time. U know how trains always leave on time? Yep lucky us, we literally stepped onto the train and it started moving! I would advise anyone taking trains from the Guangzhou South Railway Station to reach there way before time. Give yourself at least 1h to navigate and collect tickets.
The train journey took about 2.5h. And like all high speed trains, the seats were comfortable and cabins really clean.
After the train reached Yangshuo Station, we took a bus that takes us to the city centre. From the city centre, we still had to pay CNY1 for a bus to West Street, where our hotel, and practically everything is located.
West Street Hotel was another awesome hotel in China I have stayed in.
The room and most importantly, TOILET, was so clean and amenities were replenished everyday. I'm super particular about toilets, so if I say it is clean, it is clean. We also had a balcony that overlooked a part of West Street.
View from our balcony:
It would be noisy at night but the noise stops around 12+ midnight. And besides, we were too tired that the noises were almost non-existent hahah.
Since the restaurant sign was so evident from our balcony, we decided to head over to 大师傅 just opposite the hotel for lunch.
Apparently, "Beer fish" is a delicacy for this area and almost all restaurants in West Street are selling beer fish. Because I lost my sense of smell, I really didn't taste any beer from the fish we ate.
Yes that was the portion for 3 people. Please don't believe them when the waitress tells u the portion is small. Singaporeans are considered small eaters as compared to China, HK, Korea so please give some leeway. This, my friends, can be shared among 4 people at least.
It wasn't fantastic (compared to the fish we had in Guangzhou) and later on I heard from the local guides that these commercialised restaurants do not have the most authentic beer fish. Ahh well.
大师傅金奖啤酒鱼(形象店)
西街口115号(原阳朔老电影院)
Price: CNY 122.50 for the above
西街口115号(原阳朔老电影院)
Price: CNY 122.50 for the above
After walking around West Street and eating some street food, we headed off to one of the most popular shows in Guilin/Yangshou area - Impression Liu San Jie. Rather than taking taxis or private cars by MANY touters along the street, we decided to try dadidi. AND IT WAS WAY CHEAPER! Pls do not be conned by those touters. Anyway, we had bought our tickets in advance via Taobao, which was way cheaper than getting at the ticketing itself. From what I saw, our hotel provides the reseller service coupled with transport there too so it is also fine to get it from West Street Hotel.
Anyway, when we reached the theatre entrance, the whole area was swamped with people. There were different groups of tours and sellers standing with their flags. We found our seller and proceeded to collect tickets and then raincoat, before proceeded to walk inner towards the theatre. The place was bigger than I expected.
It was a long walk in and we finally sat down on our assigned seats. It didn't look like much but once the lights came on, we were awed by the scene, simply because, the backdrop was the beautiful limestone karst hills and lake.
In the opening scenes, everyone just "wow" "oooh" "wah".
And then I got bored.
And fell asleep at some point in time.
Well that's the thing about free and easy travels, u don't have a tour guide to explain certain things to u, and u don't bother to google too. And that was what happened to us. We didn't know the story of Liu San Jie. And because the whole show didn't have dialogues - it was only singing and visual effects, we sort of guessed our way through some of the scenes.
I liked this scene though. Those strings of lights are all humans. Yes lots of humans.
But still, I highly encourage tourists to come and watch this show, just so to experience the scale of the whole production. #onlyinchina
Afterwards, we dadidi back to West Street and continued eating some street snacks before turning ending the day.
We went to our hotel front desk to book a tour for the next morning. There are many such tours available on Taobao, but we couldn't decide on the best one.
We picked the package (route no.3) with the best scenery (or so they say), haggled the price a bit, and turned in for the night. Yay to no need for thinking/planning hard about our routes around the Yangshou county the next day. It is highly recommended to go with a tour package arranged by the hotel because u don't have to worry about transport issues (u can do your own transport, but it will be time-consuming) and the price for certain entry tickets might be cheaper.
Anyway, after the trip, I might prefer route no.2, at least according to the pictures it looked like it had better scenery... And that, brings me to day 3 next.
