For those of you lucky people of the south, (and possibly the Qingdao ren who can make it down for the trip) you’re in for one of the best photo trips of your time in China: Guilin

Go West Young Man:
Most commonly found on the back of your pocket variety 20kuai note, (but also in North West of Hong Kong). The limestone karst hills were formed over 2million years ago when the ocean slowly receded from the area. Today the landscape presents a collage of countless rice paddies and slow streams. It also presents photo opportunities that will have your friends and family convinced you were really in China immersing yourself, not just familiarizing your palate with baijiu and tsingdao.

How to Make Friends and Influence People:

Notable culinary souvenirs to try, buy and share with co-workers the following monday are the rice white wine (three flower liquor), the chilli sauce and the pickled tofu. Your laoban will pat you ever so gently on the back.

A Note on Nightlife and Dog Meat:
After a day of exploring and group amblings around the sites, there may well be opportunity for “some few drinks” and people watching in the Zhengyang Walking Street.
Most trips we don’t get to branch out beyond our own intern-circle, but to make things interesting the first person to be called “gou rou” or dog meat (the honoured term of affection for friends used in Guilin) by a new local friend, get’s free drinks the whole night. And complementary sunglasses and electrolyte-rich drink the next day.