Harder Family

Harder Family

Monday, June 23, 2025

Update 6/23/25: Day 27 - Guilin Day 2

Psalm 90:2 “Before the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.” 

First of all, I want to wish Joella a happy birthday. It is crazy that my “baby” is now 13. She got to choose what we did today and she chose a boat ride.

I cannot begin to describe how beautiful today was. These photos do not do it justice at all. Guilin has soared to the top of my China list for its amazing, beautiful scenery. I still loved Xi’an for the neat history aspects, but Guilin is just stunning! Excuse the picture overload, but we wanted to try to share the beauty with you. 














Since the water levels were so high, the local bamboo boats weren’t running. So, we took a larger boat up the river to enjoy the beautiful mountains. While we were waiting for our boat, we were able to take pictures with my favorite birds! I love seeing them in Florida, and here, they help fishermen fish! It was worth the few dollars to get these photos. 
























The girls and I watched a documentary a few days ago about the Miao people group in China who are known for the silver making. Since some of the people can be found in Guilin, they have shops where you can rent clothes, much like the Tang dynasty outfits we saw in Xi’an. Micaela would one day like to travel and visit some of the actual tribal people since she found the documentary fascinating. For now, we settled for a picture of someone in part of the outfit.







Shan wanted to do a mini-photoshoot for me. 🤣 He said I take everyone else’s pictures and need some of me too. Isn’t that so sweet?



















The girls wanted to reenact the famous Titanic picture.









Wayne joined us again on our boat ride. He enjoyed the beautiful scenery. 

















I bought the girls a flower headband made from this old lady. She was working so hard to support herself.


We then drove to this amazing spot off the road. While we were there, we bought a mango and apple bananas. We also spotted some nasty food-dried bats and rats, along with some intestines. 👀👀










We then traveled another hour to a location used on the 20 RMB bill. While we were waiting our turn, another lady with my favorite birds showed up. When she heard they were my favorite birds, she offered me a deal I couldn’t refuse. For $1.25, she let us use her birds in our professional photos (the last pictures at the bottom of my post).













The girls said we found the real pink panther. 



After another hour of driving, we arrived at a spot that had the bamboo boats still running.






























For a late lunch, the kids got fresh coconut. We also had a special sticky rice in bamboo, which was delicious, along with some chicken and sweet potato greens.




We grabbed a few treats to celebrate Joella’s birthday. She got some ice cream and cake from a local bakery. We also tried this delicious bread!




Professional photos. The background is so beautiful is looks fake, but it was real. I would move here in a heartbeat to enjoy these beautiful views. This whole area was under severe flooding the previous two years. 



Tomorrow, we head to the rice terraces. We are very excited for that adventure.










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