thanks so much for all your time typing up these feedback/comments...i really appreciate it...
yeah, i realize that guilin is an expensive side trip, but im hoping its well worth it for us. We probably wont be heading back to china for a while after this, so we figured we might as well see it rather than Xian. My dad has friends/colleagues in both Beijing/Guilin, so he said he'll put together the transportation. I plan to use the special rates for holiday Inns in Beijing/Shanghai as I see them for about 70-80 dollars per night.
Definitely thanks for the heads up on the elephant trunk and the flute cave. My dad has seen the night show on the Li River and he recommended that we all go see that. I'll ask my dad about the Yangshuo boat ride instead of nearby Guilin. Maybe even check out the rice fields.
As for Shanghai, we probably only have the 17th to be there as we will be leaving around 5pm on the 18th for US. We'll need to eat dinner with my uncle that lives there, so I'll probably have to stick with the timetable mentioned before. My parents also told me theres not much to see in Shanghai, so we'll probably just walk around for 1 day and spend some time with family.
Thanks again! I'll definitely write a review and post some pictures after the trip. Thankfully my parents are fluent in chinese and I can barely get by. We are looking forward to eating great chinese food and just spending some time with the family in China.
Would you suggest to wait on the plane tickets until May? Right now on Ctrip, theres a 30% discount on both legs of my flight within china.