Guilin

It's a city with 1.3 million people in the middle of a karst formation along the Lijiang river. It has modern city center an a bit of tourism. It has Chinese shopping malls (a lot of tiny shops) and American shopping malls (bigger is better). The public transport system works very good and it's to get an overview. The weather changed a lot from sunny to rainy. We hiked up one of the smaller karst hills to have an over view of the city. In the city center there is a huge night market which sells all the things you don't really need. Besides the funny shaped hills the main attraction are the beautiful parks which a light up during the night. They also sell the Great Wall Wine which is acceptable. We stayed here for 3 nights because we had to regroup after taking the difficult backdoor into Guangxi province. Even though it's big, there is something charming about that city.