Three Quebecers on the Go

Almost immediately after we came back to Beijing, my Quebecois friend John was also coming back home after a few weeks spent with his family in Sherbrooke, Quebec. He had the marvellous idea to bring back a few bags of cheese curds with him. I still had some dehydrated poutine gravy left from what Stef had brought me a few months earlier so the three together, we made ourselves a poutine dinner at my place. It was delicious. So long had it been since my last good poutine. Later that night, it was Isabelle’s turn to land into town. She was also a friend from Quebec coming in to visit China.


Definitely, there was a lot of Quebecois around all the sudden. So I took advantage of the momentum to invite yet another Quebecoise for a Spaghetti dinner the next day. Actually you might have heard of her from a Radio-Canada documentary about her (http://www.radio-canada.ca/audio-video/pop.shtml#urlMedia=http://www.radio-canada.ca/Medianet/2008/CBFT/ALheureDeLaChine200808151900_2.asx&epr=true). The five of us had really good time that night.

The next morning, Isabelle, Benoit, and myself were in a plane on our way to Shenzhen. Shenzhen is the Chinese frontier city into Hong Kong. It’s a rather large and prosperous city. We spent the evening with Eric, yet another Quebecois but this time friend of Benoit. We strolled around town a bit but not so much. We stayed there only one day there. The next evening we were on a train to Guilin.

Guilin truly was a love at first sight. It was much smaller, just over 1 million people. It was surrounded by luscious green mountains. The city was intertwined with parks and wiping willows boarded rivers. This city is famous for its beauty and often serves as base for tourist that come to visit the area and its numerous attractions and sights.

We spent the first day walking around in parks and other. Our first lunch was quite memorable. Isabelle insisted that wanted to taste dog meat. Yes some people do eat dog in some places in China, especially in the southern parts like where we were. Personally, I could have gone without it even though I was too a bit curious. As for dog owner and dog lover Ben, he was to the contrary totally horrified and discussed at the idea. Majority won, we ordered a plate of it. How to describe? Well either I did have some before without knowing it or they used a common spice but the taste wasn’t unfamiliar to me. I wouldn’t know how to describe it further. It was edible but I don’t think I’ll ever reorder it again.

The next day, we went visit the famous mountain side rice fields of Longji. Unfortunately it wasn’t the best time of the year to go visit them which would be spring well the fields are filled with water. At that time it was more the harvest season but it was nonetheless quite impressive. We were able to wander around as much as we wanted, not only in the village but in the fields as well. We tried the some of the local cuisine which consisted of rice and chicken cooked inside a big piece of bamboo thrown in a small fire. These villagers truly are irrigation geniuses to be able to cultivate such a huge mountainous area.

On the third day, went down to a small but very beautiful touristy town called Yangshuo, about 1 hours south of Guilin. It offers many attractions and pedestrian market streets with lots of restaurants and bars. The monolithic mountains are omnipresent there, even more so than it Guilin. It was by far the most beautiful place I was given to visit in China. The area is also known for its numerous and spectacular caves. It was sumptuous.

For our last full day in the area, Isabelle and I decided to go on a private raft cruise on part of the river that links Guilin to Yangshuo. We wanted to be on the boat just in time for sunset and not before so in the mean time we went visit a tiny fishermen/farmer village called Daxu. We the right time came, stepped in a small raft made to look like it was made of bamboo but wasn’t. It was quite enjoyable. The view was amazing and the water rather calm. Even though the reflection of the mountains in the water with the sunset was breathtaking, my favourite part was when we came across a horde of buffalos grazing on aquatic plants in the river. For 2 minutes I felt like I was in a safari or some animal documentary.






















































Stay tuned for the rest of the trip on my next blog post!