March 27, 2009
Another section of our homepage has been completed: The Guilin Photo Gallery is now up and running.
Before you can actually go and upload your own photos you have to register in the bottom of the left side navigation.
To directly go to the Gallery, please click on the nice old lady on the right.
March 24, 2009
On March 22 the construction of the official “Flying Tigers” Memorial Park has begun in the outskirts of Guilin. The park area will include the remains of the former Yangtang airfield where the volunteer group, commanded by General Claire Lee Chennault, has been stationed from October 1941 to the end of the war. 
The group consisted of 99 pilots, 200 ground crew man and 10 army flight instructors which were hired as check pilots for Chinese cadets. Several of these would ultimately join the AVG’s combat squadrons. The group derived their name from the brightly colored paintings on their airplanes. While the actual average
strength of the AVG was never more than 62 combat-ready pilots and fighters, Chennault’s strategy, also called “Chennault’s fighter doctrine” proved to be highly successful against the Japanese airforce. On 297 destroyed enemy planes, they only lost 14 pilots. The US$ 23 million project will include the reconstruction of the command post and barracks as well as a museum. 
There is a second small “Flying Tigers”Museum in the mountainous area around Guilin, consisting of the wreckage of a downed B24, dragged out of the mountain it crashed into. The museum was privately taken care of and currently does not have English descriptions. It is not known if the two places will be combined after the park opens to the public. Here a link to the original news in Chinese and here a link to the official web-page of the Flying Tigers Heritage park
March 23, 2009
Ten little Guilin Expats went out to dine,
one fell into a pothole, reducing them to nine…
Guilin is situated in the “center of a 540,000 square km belt of some of the finest subtropical tower karst known”* Some people even call it the international capital of karst.
Now, karst has a feature of being water soluble, which often results in caves being created. Normally caves form underground, slowly moving upwards when the cave is getting bigger and rocks fall from the ceiling, thus reducing the thickness of the covering limestone.
When the covering limestone gets to thin, they collapse, producing collapse dolines. This is exactly what happened last week in Chuan Shan Dong Lu , creating a giant pothole in the middle of the street.
City management was busy shoveling dirt for a whole day before the hole was filled.
The downside of only shoveling dirt to close the hole is that now the water can not only continue its destructive process from underground, but also rain can enter from the top, speeding up the process. We are sure that this “pothole”will pop up (or cave in) again in the future.
Below two photos of a similar incident that happened in May 2007 in front of the entrance to Seven Star Park. That time it was filled properly by drilling boreholes into the ground and cement the rubble by pumping concrete into it.
* Source: Ru Jin Wen, Karst in Guilin, 1991 University of Science and Technology of China Publishing House
** First two pictures taken from news.xinmin.cn
Our all favorite breakfast dish will be celebrated at the 3rd Annual Guilin Rice Noodle Festival from April 28th to May 3rd in Xing’An. The topic this year is “Enjoy Xing’An’s Landscape & eat Guilin Rice Noodles”.
The Rice Noodle Festival was first held in 2007 to promote tourism 
in the region and bring the charm of the region to locals and international tourists alike. This year the event will include a range of Rice Noodle-themed activities like a press conference and fashion show in Guilin to kick off the event (April 28th), the official opening ceremony with theatrical performance on “Ginko Plaza” and different other daily activities like folk song & lion dance competitions.
Of course there will be enough chance to try the noodles itself and get a decent pint of beer to flush them down. Next to the actual event there will be bus tours to tourist attractions in the vicinity. The closing ceremony will be held on “Ginko Plaza” on the 3rd May.
Apologies for the quality of the first two photos on the right. They have been taken in the twilight of a mifen-den.
For Chinese information please click here
March 22, 2009
It was a nice “globalised” party again. Expats from around the globe – the Americas, Australia, Europe – and inpats from Guilin took part.The international cuisine was excellently composed by Chinese cooks. There were German Gulasch, French baguette, Austrian Palatschinken, Chinese beer and Australian “Cabernet Sauvignon”.
We talked in English, Chinglish and Dinglish, German , Chinese and Crazy Chinese.
And some of us smoked Virginian Tobacco. Yes you can do this in China! And there is nobody to report it to the police! 
On behalf of Sharon, the photos from last Saturday’s party.
March 9, 2009
It is time again for Sharon’ s famous “Saturday Party”
Date: 14th March
Time: starting at 18:30
Menu: Tomato Soup, Gulasch, Pancake
Price: RMB 60 per person (not including drinks)
Please RSVP if you like to attend!!!!
For more Information please visit:
Sharon’s Website
View Larger Map
March 8, 2009
This first posting marks the beginning of the construction of this webpage. In the following weeks we will add information about Guilin’s Culture, History, Restaurants, Hotels and everything else of interest for Halfpats, Expats and other non-Chinese folks.
If you are an Expat living in Guilin or Yangshuo and interested in contributing to this blog, please feel free to send a message to guilinexpat [at] googlemail.com.
©2009-2010 Copyright Guilin Expat.- All Rights Reserved
