PingYao Road Trip

Last weekend my colleagues and I took a roadtrip to Shanxi province and a little town called PingYao.  This town is known for being the best protected town in China as the former Emperor/Mayor/Head Honcho decided to build a huge wall around the entire city.  The plan was to visit this city and stop at a couple of other places of interest along the way.  I didn’t really do a lot of research on the place before heading out…all I knew was that if they were going to pay for us to charter a bus to see a different part of China…I was in! 

We loaded up the bus around 1:00 on Friday afternoon and were on our way.  During the 8 hour trip there I actually got a lot of grading done (wohoo) and had plenty of time to get to know all of the colleagues a little better.  We were also warned that the hotel might not be of ‘good quality’ and to not get our expectations up.  Around 9:00 we pulled into the walled city and the bus let us off on a curb and a huge golf cart met us there to whisk us away to the hotel.  Pulling into the hotel was like pulling onto the set of a movie…this hotel was magnificent!  Poor quality…pshaw!

After checking out the hotel and the rooms (which were about $25 a night) we all met for a huge dinner at the actual hotel that they provided for us.  After a tasty meal of some things that I’d rather not reminisce about (I only asked about the first, intestine, and then decided it was best not to ask any further questions) we were ready to get a small glimpse of the walled city.  We took a brief walk that night to see the towers all lit up and the city at night.  The next day we woke up early for breakfast at the hotel and then headed out early to see more of the city.

I ended up heading out with many of the Chinese speakers in the group and had a great time seeing the sites while also indulging in plenty of the famous street foods and local flair.  There were plenty of great picture opportunities as well…

And…

And many memorable moments.  Patrick was offered a Chinese man’s daughter in marriage…after the man was so impressed with the ‘foreigners’ Chinese skills.  Kelsey was also the subject of many snap and go photos from the Chinese who can’t get over her pink hair…and we saw everything from trained monkeys, to camels, to donkeys with BMW headbands.  Woah…what a day!  After quite a bit of exploring we stopped in to try some of the local dishes.  This city is known for their beef noodles and for their vinegar and a special type of beef that tastes kind of like corned beef.  The noodles left me unimpressed (but really how can you top my homemade turkey noodle soup??) but the other dishes were great!  I also was a huge fan of the pulled ginger taffy. 

After lunch we all met up to head out to the Wang Compound.  A huge complex on the outskirts of the city built for this large family.  The poor bus driver was confused and got lost several times making for a very interesting 2.5 hour ride there…lol.  One of the highlights of the trip here was a special production of the shadow puppet show that they provided just for us (since we missed the last showing). 

After visiting the compound we decided to all go out to a big dinner together.  They put our group in a huge banquet room by ourselves and we took advantage of the opportunity to have some great fun.  Patrick led us in a few rounds of drinking games (well you know tea, coca cola, stuff like that).  The favorites were a game called chi shequa where you pound the table and say chi shequa chi shequa and then there is a combination of things that must be done.  The kicker is that chi shequa translates to ‘eat watermelon’.  While playing the game the fuyan comes in and yells…’we don’t have any watermelon’.  Maybe you had to be there…but it was great fun.

After a good night of rest we set out the next morning to a temple along the way home.  There were many great sites at this table and again some great photo opportunities :-)

Then it was in the bus to start the long trek back home.  About an hour in we soon hit a complete standstill.  Apparently there was a wreck ahead and so traffic was completely stopped for probably an hour and a half, two hours.  The funny thing was to see the Chinese reaction to this.  Before we knew it there were little vendors going up and down the aisles of traffic selling noodles and fruit.  We eventually got going again and made it back home around 10:30.  A long weekend, but definitely worth the road trip.

Zaijian,

Gary