Friday, February 13, 2009

Day 5 - Yangshuo

29 Jan 2009

We had our lunch in Moon Hill Village at one of the farmer restaurants - which local farmers open their own restaurant featuring authentic local dishes. We could even see the Moon limestone formation right in front of the restaurant.

After lunch, we proceeded to the Big Banyan Tree(Da Rong Shu) - this ancient tree is over 1,000 years old and one of the most unusual natural sites in Yangshuo. This spot is also famous because the popular chinese movie 'Liu San Jie(3rd sister Liu)' had some scenes filmed there. See the man in the colourful costume on the 3rd roll of the picture? His name is Ah Meng, he was a funny and happy uncle as he love to laugh. His wife kept asking him to close his mouth when taking pictures. He did a superman posed in that costume as requested by my hubby and another couple, can you imagined that? heehee :)

We headed to Shangri-La(Shi Wai Tao Yuan) which means a ideal living place, equivalent to heaven. A beautiful landscape kingdom of Guilin, Shangri-La is located not far from Yangshuo(10mins by bus) along Guiyang road.

Night

We watched the Impression Liu San Jie Sound and Light Show. The show goes on every night except for the first and second day of Lunar New Year. The entire performance was 1 hour, and the entrance ticket cost 200 RMB; the set site was at the Li and Yu Long Rivers, south of Yangshuo. This is a major production with a cast of 500 singers, dancers, bamboo boats and cormorants. However, the stand out performer is definitely the background scenery. The lighting of the karst peaks was truly amazing and was the main highlight.

The show was designed and directed by Zhang Yimo, who has been awarded to task and direct the opening ceremony at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The performance was based on a Chinese musical movie made in 1961.
The story was about a lady called Liu San Jie who lived in the city of Liuzhou (2 hours from Guilin) where she worked in the fields. Liu San Jie was well known in Liuzhou for her great singing voice. She would always sing while she worked in the fields. One day she left Liuzhou and came to Yangshuo on a bamboo raft and settled here. Then under the Big Banyan tree, Liu San Jie tossed her love ball to her loved one, which he accepted and they lived happily ever after.The show itself tries to show how the local people live. There are some people from different minorities wearing their tradition costumes singing their festival songs. You will also see a display of bamboo rafts.

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