Missed out on the last parties? No worries, we’ll let you compensate with our extra-high event-density for the rest of October:

First, there will be a “Birthday Party” on October 22nd, followed by a Halloween themed Movie Night on October 29th and finally, finally a real Halloween Party on October 31st.

Click here to read our newsletter with more details.

If you want to be informed about upcoming parties and events you can click here to sign up for our newsletter. Don’t worry about spam, we hate it as much as you do.

Guilin is a beautiful place to live, but schooling is a major problem for foreign parents, who are looking for something outside of the mainstream Chinese school system. Now, there is finally an international school in Guilin… almost. As a group of parents, we are working together with Guilin Sunny School in the Seven Star District to combine the best of the Chinese system with the best of the Western system.

Right now, we are picturing the students attending classes along with the Chinese students for math, Chinese, physical education and other classes, like art and music. The classes will be primarily in Chinese, with an English speaking teacher to help students, who need it.

Other classes, like English, social studies and other humanities will be taught by a Western teacher, using Western methods. Individual thinking and creativity will be encouraged and cultivated.

Guilin Sunny School is a progressive, well appointed school, with professional, free thinking teachers. The school currently has some foreign students and is fully committed to the goal of creating a parallel program for international students, outside of the national testing system. Class rooms are available for our exclusive use.

As parents, we are bringing together curricula from our various home countries (US, UK and Australia) to create an effective program, designed to help our children learn to be not just scholars, but leaders and creative thinkers as well.

Unfortunately, the timing of our organization of this program is a little awkward, as school is about to begin. A few of the kids in our group, including our two children, currently attend Guilin Sunny School and our hope is to get the program up and running soon, so our kids can join the program this semester. Other parents have already paid for this semester at another school and they will join this program at the start of the next semester.

At this point, the program is starting to gather momentum and we invite all interested parents to join us and to help create the curriculum and environment for the school. I can be reached at scott@filley.net or at 139-773-96705. Contact me and I will add you to the online collaboration workspace for the international school project.

The 7th Guilin House and Car festival will be held during this years “Golden Week”, from 30th Sep. to 3rd Oct 2010 in Guilin’s Exhibition Center (next to the Nan Cheng Shopping Center). It is organized by the Guilin Government in conjunction with Guilin Daily Newspaper.

The exhibition is divided into 5 halls of which one is for real estate, one for decoration companies and the remaining three for cars.

The real estate hall is divided into three themes, famous construction companies, boutique housing and real estate in the newly developed areas around Lingui.

So if you’re looking for a bigger place or you want to spend some cash, this is the place for you to go. (If you don’t have a Chinese driving license, click here for instructions how to get one)

Yesterday the 4th Guilin reading month started in the Guilin’s Central Square. This years theme is: “The most beautiful landscape, the most enjoyable reading”. From now until May 2011 there will be 13 themed activities.

The festivals activities include: “Books Drifting”(whatever that means), “Browsing through Guilin’s Culture”, Speech Competitions, Youth Animation Competitions, Youth Scientific Knowledge Competition, Good Books Recommendations, Book Collectors Advice, National Book Donation Drive, Intangible Cultural Heritage Exhibition and so on.

After the official opening ceremony, Guilin Central Square will hold more activities such as book and video exhibitions, promotion of intangible cultural heritage, philatelic exhibitions and author book signings.

Source: Guilin Evening Newspaper, 24th June, p.2

According to the Bureau of Parks, Guilin will build four new free park, called Jingpingshan Park, Maoershan Garden Park, Lidong Park and Guilin Garden and Plants Park. The project is already in progress and planned to be finished in 2012. They are build to improve the ecological environment in the Wayao Area, Qintan Area, West of Putuo Area and in the north of Guilin city. They are also planned to be leisure places for residents.

Each of these four parks have their own characteristics. They are different from the other parks in Guilin. The Jingpingshan Park will be made an island park including Douji Mountain, Jingping Mountain, Dazhou and 10 small islands. The park will be located in the Wayao Area in the south of Guilin.

Maoershan Garden Park will be a future flower park. With the Maoer Mountain as the center, it divides into an Orchid viewing area, an Orchid historical and cultural district, a Green Mountain Recreation Area and an Orchid cultivation and breeding area.

Lidong Park will include the Dongjing Nursery and some of the land of the Garden Construction Company. As there are a lot of universities close by it is planned to be a “sports park”. It will include many fitness equipments for the youth.

Guilin Garden and Plants Park will be build as a exotic and friendly “Garden City Style”.

These four free park and another 17 new roads will frame the outer city from all four directions. They are also believed to increase the value of land at the outskirts of the city for possible development.

source: http://news.guilinlife.com/news/2010/06-19/116079.html

With the ending of Gaokao school examination and summer holidays coming, the summer peak air-travel time will start. China Southern Airlines plans to add a connection from Guilin over Zhengzhou to Qingdao starting on the 1st July to remove pressure from other airline routes.

The flight number will be China Southern CZ6307 and the scheduled departure time 08:05am to12:10am on every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. The return flight is CZ6307 from 1:00pm to 5:00pm.

The airline expects that the opening ceremony of Qingdao beer festival at the end July will become another hot travel destination after the Shanghai World Expo.

original chinese article: http://news.guilinlife.com/news/2010/06-20/116224.html

With Google playing Russian Roulette on the Chinese market, and Facebook, Twitter et all being “harmonized”, it is perhaps time to think about ways to get the content you want.

*AD ALERT*

We are using Secure Tunnel for about a year now. It is one of the few providers that is also running smoothly on Ubuntu Linux. They are offering different kinds of services, but if you just want to get your fill of youtube, the cheapest, US$10 per month SSL Tunnel should be fine.

This is a follow up from the recent China Visa post: If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is!

It is not that easy to get a visa like “China Observer” claims to be. There is a more accurate overview on  http://www.travelchinaguide.com/embassy/visa/service.htm

For people who would normally require to obtain a visa in advance there are certain emergency situations which will permit them to get a visa on arrival.

These will always require an invitation from an accredited Chinese organisation which explains the emergency, (mostly related to business purposes which from the Chinese perspective it is important that you are admitted without delay) or you must yourself be in a real emergency situation such as a passenger in a plane or ship in mechanical difficulty.

Aliens who hold ordinary passports issued by countries which have diplomatic relations or official trade links with China as well as letter(s) or telegram(s) from authorized units in China, may, under any of the following circumstances where they must necessarily rush to China but have no time to apply for a visa, apply to the visa-granting departments at entry ports as authorized by the Ministry of Public Security.

The Rules on Visa Issued at Entry Ports are not applicable to the nationals of United States.

1. They are invited at the last moment by a Chinese host to come to China for a trade fair.

2. They are invited to come to China to submit a tender or to sign a formal economic or trade contract.

3. They come to China by appointment to supervise the inspection of import and export commodities or to participate in a check-and-accept operation in accordance with contracts.

4. They are invited to participate in the installation of equipment or in the emergency repair of engineering projects.

5. They come to China at the request of the Chinese side to solve a problem of claims.

6. They are invited to come to provide technical advisory services.

7. They come to China due to a last-minute change in the composition of a visiting group and with consent of the Chinese side after the visas are granted.

8. They come to China to see patients in critical conditions, or to undertake funeral matters.

9. Owing to force majeure, transit visa holders cannot leave the country within twenty-four hours by taking the original place or by taking other means of transport.

10. Other invited guests who really have no time for visa application to the aforesaid China’s resident agencies abroad, and who hold letter(s) or telegram(s) from competent authorities who give the consent for the invited guests to apply for the visa at the designated entry ports.

The visa-granting agencies at entry ports shall not accept and handle visa applications filled out by people who do not come under the aforesaid circumstances.

Some accredited International Travel Agencies incorporated under Chinese laws may apply for group-tour visa at entry ports with Visa Notification Form issued by provincial office of foreign affairs.

Visa-issuing departments at port of entry, as authorized by the Ministry of Public Security, are stationed at the following ports:

Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing, Dalian, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Xi’an, Guilin, Hangzhou, Kunming, Guangzhou (Baiyun Airport), Shenzhen (Luohu, Shekou), Zhuhai (Gongbei), Haikou, Sanya, Jinan, Qingdao, Yantai, Weihai, Chengdu, Nanjing, Changchun, Huichun, Hekou, Mohan.

There is also provision for a short stay (5 day) ‘visa on arrival’ for some nationalities for persons who only want to visit a Special Economic Zone such as Zhuhai or Shenzhen.

China Hospitality News ran an article about the Tourism Department of Guilin Government opening the “the first tourist public service management body in China”:

“An official of the administration said that it will devise a plan for Guilin to build a public tourist system, establish tourist service centers and tourist distribution centers in downtown areas, promote a self-drive service system and the hire of recreational vehicles, and build a first class tourist public information service platform.”

While this is certainly a laudable effort to make Guilin, eh, … “better”, some open question remain:

First, we would really like to know how a “self-drive service system” is going to work if foreign driving licenses are still not accepted here. It is unlikely that this system is meant to be for bicycles only.

Second, we are a bit worried about the “distributing free promotional materials to tourists directly” part. It is not that we don’t like freebies but we don’t think that the Government should get involved into the daily turf wars between beggars, hawkers, “massaggi-ladies” and tricycle drivers for the last tourists that couldn’t escape into a nearby coffee shop.

Still, an improvement of the current situation in the Tourist Information (hardly anybody speaks English, no information material) will definitely benefit those visitors that want to explore Guilin and surrounding by themselves.

At this point we would like to point towards our partner page “Guilin Hiking” which will soon start to organize hiking trips again.

The German speaking “China Observer” reported that from now on it will be possible to get “on-arrival” tourist visas in Guilin Liangjiang International Airport.

This is, if true, good news for last minute tourists who don’t have time to shuffle to the Chinese embassy in their home country to apply for a visa. The maximum duration is limited to 30 days. It is not known if these on-arrival visas can be extended by another 30 days like “normal” Chinese tourist visas.

To get the visa you need to take a visa application form, a passport photo with white background and a copy of you passport (+ the passport of course) with you.

The “Port Visa Office” at the Airport is open the whole day:

Tel: +86 0773 2845053
Fax: +86 0773 2845053

The visa fees are CNY 130 for group tours and CNY 160 for single travelers.

source: http://www.china-observer.de/index.php?entry=entry100117-084010