South China, on the way to Vietnam

I had duck enthrals and rice and greens and a miso concotion with gelatinous and short algae, it was somewhat tasty. I was ducking (from the cold) in a local fast food restaurant that tries to aim for the macdonald’s experience while cooking single servings of traditional chinese specialties, served at the table by one hapless teenage waitress, probably a student, like most everybody else in the joint, including chef and manager. The meal was good and it cost less than $ 3, though I had to buy chocolate to consolidate caloric values against the cold, and eventuakky also what seemed a fresh loaf of bread, made “Chinatown style”: with dough that is both sweet and salty, as I have experimented in my neighborhood in New York. On the whole, except for the weather, Guilin was not unpleasant, if far from the beauty the guide books described: the Karst formations that made me think of scenes of traditional Chinese landscape painting, where several emerge from the fog, were scarce in town and were more visible leaving it along the railroad, and since then, rather a common sight, on the way to Southern Vietnam. Not worth a pilgrimage, though I only deviated slightly from my intended itinerary, I am glad there were no health consequences, as I was unprepared for the cold weather. Yongshun, up stream, also did not make an impression, other than it really fits local beauty parameters: all the Chinese people I managed to talk to about it, raved and told me what wonderful places both were, I was not charmed by either.