Senior Test Days

This photo was taken during the lunch break of the first day of the all-important Senior Tests. Parents were picking up their kids to take them to lunch. The tests last 2 days. Parents accompanied them to the school and some of them actually stayed the whole day waiting (standing) outside in the heat. People were handing out flyers to the kids finishing up. There were signs in the road reminding people that there was a school nearby giving the tests. Multiple Police were at the corners attempting to keep the traffic quiet and organized. You could almost feel the stress in the air. How many of us stayed and waited till our kid finished their SATs…… (I didn’t- guess I wasn’t a tiger mom.)

QuiYang Day 3

Our Wild Taxi Driver

The last day we decided not to join a tour because we just wanted to see one of the old stone towns and we needed to be back in time to catch our flight. On our first night we caught a cab with a driver that seemed pretty good – so we got his phone number and called and reserved him for our Monday sightseeing. He must have been on his best driving behavior Saturday night – because he was a different driver Monday. He managed to find the most excuses to use the horn and find the bumpiest roads to get to TianLong Town. It was about an hour of bouncing around (only banged my head once and no, there wasn’t a seat belt in the backseat). I wear a pedometer to count my steps – so I have gotten pretty good at predicting how much we walk – I would guess about 5000 steps that day – but the pedometer read 17000 – so that means 12000 of those “steps” were really the bigger bumps in the road. Shocks, tires and horns are probably the first things that wear out on a Chinese driven car.

On his good side he didn’t smoke in the car and he did recommend a really good restaurant for the “Spicey Chicken” that Guiyang is famous for.

Side note: - No McDonalds in the whole City – with all our driving we should have seen McDonalds- but none. There were lots of KFC’s. Also the whole 3 days we only saw 3 other foreigners and that was at the big waterfalls. It is rare to be in a town as big as GuiYang and not see any foreigners or McDonalds.

Another side note: Cynthia was actually able to sleep during the bouncing, honking, swerving taxi ride. I have seen many people do this on the buses too. This supernatural power must be built into the Chinese genes.

Stone Town

TianLong Town

This is a stone town – even the roofs are made of flagstone. In 1381 A.D., the first emperor of the Ming dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhan stationed his soldiers here and built the first stone barracks. It appears that time has sort of ‘stood still’ here – most of the older men and women still use the old fashion dress style and not just for the tourists. The doors are very short and people still live in these stone structures (you can hear the TVs behind the wooden doors). Women with no headbands are single, white head bands means they are married, black ones –not sure (widowed I would guess).

Whiney Boy

I made the mistake of speaking to a boy selling rocks at one of the tour stops. He followed me around for 10 minutes whining at a loud and high pitch. I almost wanted to buy the rock to get rid of him but I knew that the next laowei would have to pay for my gullibility – so I remained strong and did not reinforce his whiney behavior. I pity his mother. It almost got to be funny with him stalking me as we walked over some really unusual terrain. Even the Chinese people tried to get him to stop. Persistent little…….kid.

Side Note: The strategically placed stepping stones had all the dates of the year stamped into them. You were supposed to find and stand on your own so that you would have good luck all year. I think it was just a ruse to make you watch your step. I stood on mine and took a picture of Zac's

GuiYang Day 2

Sunday – Huangguoshu Waterfalls

We opted to go with a tour (14 hours) for this part of our trip because the place is about a 2 hour drive away. We had a nice bus, good driver, comfortable seats and great scenery. In the photos you will see two sets of falls and a park but the tour also did a couple of caves. We had lots of walking, climbing and stairs. The southern part of China is having a drought so the falls were not as spectacular as expected but they were still pretty impressive.

GuiYang Trip

GuiYang http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiyang

is the Capital city of Guizhou Province that is west of Hunan Province (mine). The landscape looks a lot like the Guilin area, Kurst hills, waterfalls, caves, lots of rice fields and lots of interesting rock houses. Even though the distance was short, Cynthia and I flew because the fastest train was 12 hours. We found a good beef noodle place for lunch then went to the nearby QianLing Park to walk around. It was a very peaceful LOOKING place but there were so many musical (?) performers, equipped with loud sound systems, competing with each other that it didn’t sound very peaceful. Another thing adding to the noise was a strange sport (or maybe a form of tai chi) that used a “top” and a whip. When the “top” was going at full speed it made a low toned humming noise. Next time the Internet is up I will post a video that I took – cause it is impossible to explain. Oh and there were monkeys all over the park. http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/guizhou/guiyang/qianling.htm

After the park we went took a cab into the center of town to look around. Mostly just shopping but we did locate a Poppa Johns for dinner. I asked for a beer and they brought me a warm one with a glass of ice… I drank it warm. Everything else was as expected. After we finished we caught a cab to the Jiaxiu Tower to take a couple of night shots. The driver was so nice and helpful we got his phone number in case we wanted to use him on Monday for our “Ancient City Tour”. (Big Mistake).

Photos of Everyday China

If you have an extra 15 minutes in the day -- this is a must - Jason the teacher from Canada that lives across the hall - took pictures of just normal stuff we see every day - stuff that I never think about writing about because it is so common. This will give you a good idea of what it is really like in China -
Make sure you make it all the way to the "Hello Kitty Car Seats" they are a scream.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28398373@N07/sets/72157626615881247/with/5753946499/