Where to Go During Spring Festival? A Guilin Guide is Ready for You – Visit These Places to Nourish the Soul and Pray for Blessings

Where to go during Spring Festival? Have you all decided? Before you know it, Spring Festival is near again. People who have been busy and stressed for a year finally have time to think about where to have a good time. However, due to well-known special reasons, the choice of destinations is actually quite limited. If you still haven't figured out where to go, Yufan might offer a suggestion: go to Guilin, Guangxi, a place with stunning landscapes.\nGuilin is one of China's first batch of national historical and cultural cities, with an extremely long history. After Emperor Qin Shi Huang unified Lingnan, he established three commanderies, one of which was Guilin Commandery. In 1201, the famous Southern Song poet Wang Zhenggong wrote the line 'Guilin's landscape is the best under heaven.' For a thousand years, the landscapes here have represented the most beautiful mountains and waters in China. Moreover, Guilin is the birthplace of Gui-Liu culture and one of the important origins of Chinese ceramic technology. It boasts two World Heritage sites. Not only are the mountains and waters steep and beautiful, but the culture is also profound, with many places to visit and photograph. Therefore, I recommend a blessing-seeking trip to Guilin during Spring Festival.\n'Truly a land of immortals, first encountered in this border region, making me feel the mortal world is mundane.' This was the exclamation made in 1637 by the famous Ming dynasty traveler Xu Xiake when he entered Guangxi by boat from the Li River and saw Guilin's landscapes. Later, he lingered here, spending a year exploring freely and wrote a 150,000-character 'Diary of a Journey to Western Guangxi,' which includes exquisite descriptions such as 'The river current strikes the mountains, the mountains are carved into cliffs, the flow returns and sand shifts, stone roots burst forth, some standing staggered in the waves, some embedded in the water's surface...'\nGuilin features typical karst landforms. Over hundreds of millions of years of geological changes, numerous separate and jagged stone peaks, scattered lakes, and countless caves have formed the beautiful Guilin landscape. The most quintessential part is along the Li River, known as the 'Hundred-Li Gallery,' while the Two Rivers and Four Lakes in the city center are the cream of the crop and not to be missed.\nThe Two Rivers and Four Lakes is a collective name for the Li River, Peach Blossom River, Mulong Lake, Gui Lake, Rong Lake, and Shan Lake. Here, during the day, green trees line the banks and the lake water is clear; at night, neon lights twinkle and fireworks bloom. It is a geomantic treasure land of Guilin. As the saying goes, mountains govern wealth, and water governs fortune. A blessing-seeking trip to Guilin should start from the Two Rivers and Four Lakes. If you can go boating there at night, feeling the interplay of mountains, waters, and the city, savoring the splendid chapters of history and culture, and experiencing the timeless masterpiece 'Thousand peaks stand in the wilderness, a single water embraces the city,' it will definitely be a wonderful experience.\nElephant Trunk Hill looks like an elephant standing by the Li River, drinking water, lifelike and fascinating. It is the city emblem of Guilin, occupying a status similar to Tiananmen in Beijing, the Oriental Pearl in Shanghai, the 'Little Waist' in Guangzhou, or the Liberation Monument in Chongqing. The Water Moon Cave at the front of the hill is curved like a full moon, penetrating the hill. Clear river water flows through the cave, and the cave's reflection on the river creates the marvelous scene of 'a bright moon under the water, a bright moon floating above the water.'\nElephant Trunk Hill is not large, but there are many attractions. The most special among them, besides the Water Moon marvel, is the Puxian Pagoda on the hill. This pagoda not only has many legends but also its shape resembles a treasure vase, hence it is also called the Treasure Vase Pagoda. Elephants are symbols of good fortune in many Asian countries, and an elephant carrying a treasure vase symbolizes peace, beauty, and happiness. Therefore, on a blessing-seeking trip to Guilin, Elephant Trunk Hill is not to be missed.\nSolitary Beauty Peak is revered as the king of Guilin's mountains, the birthplace of the entire city of Guilin, and also a geomantic treasure land. The Solitary Beauty Peak·Prince City Scenic Area is the first national 5A-level tourist attraction in downtown Guilin. The world-famous line 'Guilin's landscape is the best under heaven' also originated from the cliff of Solitary Beauty Peak. Therefore, on a blessing-seeking trip to Guilin, Solitary Beauty Peak is also not to be missed.\nSolitary Beauty Peak rises abruptly, surrounded by many peaks, known as the 'Southern Pillar.' The mountain is engraved with cliff carvings from different periods on the theme of blessings and longevity. Many locals come here to pray for blessings and longevity, so it has been called 'Blessing and Longevity Mountain' since ancient times. During the Spring Festival, climbing the steps along the path up Solitary Beauty Peak with family symbolizes rising step by step. At the top, leaning on the railing and looking into the distance, the entire city of Guilin is in full view.\nThe Song dynasty poet Chen Zao wrote a poem 'Ode to Guilin': 'Guilin has many cave palaces, as if housing a host of immortals. The four fields are all flat land, a thousand peaks reach straight to the sky.' It describes that Guilin has many caves, and Reed Flute Cave is undoubtedly the most brilliant pearl, known as the 'Palace of Natural Art.' The cave is filled with a dazzling array of stalactites, stalagmites, stone pillars, stone curtains, and stone flowers, resembling figures and objects, vividly lifelike. They form more than thirty beautiful scenes, like a magnificent underground palace carved from gems, coral, and jade.\nIf time permits, besides the city center, you can also visit the suburbs of Guilin. For example, Gongcheng is very good. Now is the season when persimmons are ripe. You can go to the Hongyan Scenic Area's ten-thousand-mu persimmon base, the Persimmon Museum, and the Persimmon Expo Park. Stroll through them and enjoy the joy of picking. Persimmons have a smooth, round shape and golden color. 'Persimmon' sounds like 'matter' in Chinese, symbolizing 'everything goes well,' representing smooth career and work.\nAfter picking persimmons, you can also visit the Wen Temple and Wu Temple in Gongcheng. Gongcheng's Wen Temple was built in 1410, with a history of over 600 years. It is a temple built to worship Confucius, the famous ancient Chinese politician, thinker, and educator. The entire temple is magnificent and is the largest and best-preserved palace-style Ming dynasty building in Guangxi to date. The Wu Temple was built in the thirty-first year of the Wanli reign of the Ming dynasty, also with a history of over 400 years, and is the most influential historical ancient building in Gongcheng. These two places have long become famous blessing sites in the Guilin area. If you come to Guilin, you might as well visit them.\nGuilin has convenient transportation, with an airport and high-speed railway stations. Taking Guangdong as an example, you can take the high-speed train from Guangzhou to Gongcheng, covering 370 kilometers in just two hours. After visiting Gongcheng's persimmon orchards and the Wen and Wu Temples, then head to Guilin, forming a 'Guangdong - Gongcheng - Guilin' blessing tour of Guilin, Guangxi. It is even more convenient than traveling to many places within Guangdong Province.