We headed down early this morning and made the most of the free buffet lunch the hostel supplied. We both had toast, cereal and tried some of the Chinese breakfast especially the pork stuffed dumplings which were delicious. We also realised and were sad to see that Jorge and Karen were no longer with us and soon would be on their way back to a very hot Brisbane.

Us remaining four were heading to the south so we took our taxi transfer to Shanghai airport were would eventually catch our domestic flight to Guilin. After we checked in our bags we said an emotional farewell to Tommy and sat in the departure lounge watching the parade of aircraft taking off and landing. We eventually boarded our flight and it was a little cramped. The gentleman beside me had a massive broadsheet newspaper and you saw him trying to read it but not annoy me. The flight was fairly uneventful apart from Laura's chair getting constantly kicked for much of the flight. At breaking point she turned expecting to she a child but instead a woman in her 20's slumped in her seat..... unbelievable. The eyes Laura gave her didn't do much as the kicking continued for most of the flight. On a more positive note they provided us with in flight food was very good with both of us choosing noodles... This surrised us as the flight was only two and a half hours. We then made our descent into,a very misty and cool Guilin airport.

When the flight landed the Chinese were up and opening up the overhead lockers even whilst the flight was taxiing despite the captain and crew repeating in several languages to keep seated until the plane stopped fully. There was very determined older lady who nearly knocked Glen over as she bulldozed past. It just typified the impatient nature of the Chinese which had been evident throughout our trip. When you thought this behaviour could not get any more extreme we waited at the baggage claim belt and found out it did. Basically, the baggage was taking a while to appear... Well not that long considering it had to be offloaded, loaded on a truck, driven across the runway and unloaded again on t the belt... but instead of waiting a queue of Chinese people kept looking through the flaps were the baggage appeared. We couldnt stop laughing at the daftness if the situation and Laura waited for an opportunity for a photo and ironically awaited patiently and got one, patience is a virtue they say!! The locals were looking at us probably thinking 'what the hell is so funny as why are you taking photographs', I did my usual walk away and pretend I was part of it... So embarrassing. It was good karma though as the belt started up on outside and the impatient guys and gals were at the end of the belt haha... By this point Laura and Blair were in hysterics and I was on the other side of the terminal pretending I didn't know them.

The baggage eventually came and we were met by William our tour guide for the rest of the trip. We then learnt we were merging with another group who were on a shorter trip to ourselves. We were lead to a small bus where it was obvious it would a good way to get to know people. The new group were mostly young backpackers from Australia and New Zealand, obviously being on their summer break period. William explained some history to us and we made the 90 minute ride to Yangzhou. It the dawned us over the next two days the weather would exceptionally cold and wet for this time of year, pretty much summed up or luck in terms of weather. The town of Yangzhou was different to how we pictured, there were shops, restaurants and bars everywhere, it was like a massive theme park set against the background of stunning mountains. It looked very much how we pictured some parts of india and thailand where the tourism has spoilt the tranquility of the place. We checked in to our hotel and later would find out our room would be one of the very few with a heater that worked.

That evening William lead the group to a nice Chinese restaurant for a welcoming meal and we all got chatting over delicious meat and vegetarian dishes all washed down with cheap beer of course. The other group were hanging a bit after they had been out until four am the previous night in a Chinese nightclub... It was quite funny as this was the trip we were originally going to do... But I was glad we did not do that trip as we would of missed Shaolin, Shanghai and the Water Town for not even paying hardly much more.... Plus we wouldn't have met such wonderful people.

After dinner everyone was tired after the long day travelling and we headed to bed. Unfortunately Laura's chesty cough was worsening and we both knew this damp cold weather on the bike ride tomorrow may not help... .....