This will be a quickie. I went to Pingyao while Myung went to Beijing. (She’s about had it with China. It’s not like she hasn’t spent years here already.) Pingyao is an old walled city which, unlike other cities in China, is almost entirely intact. There are few new buildings there, and they are “new-old” buildings which don’t stick out like sore thumbs. that said, it looks the same all over town. The wall is, if I am remembering correctly, 12 km around. The picture below has a bit of the all and a typical street scene. I put in the picture above to give you an idea of what a backpacker hostel looks like in the middle of a place like this. Actually, I stayed in a YHA hostel across the street from this one. I was having a beer at a table in front when I took this of the YHA place across the steet. About four of the streets look touristy like those. Otherwise, it’s a real town with real people with real, everyday lives.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t that crowded. I thought it would be like Lijiang, especially since it can be reached from Beijing in about 6 hours, but it isn’t. It’s not even jaded. The people are nice and it isn’s full of touts and “Come into my shop”. Even better, there is no admission to enter, though they sell an 80 yuan pass to some 20 buildings, museums and access to the top of the wall. I just moseyed around, spending one night, and took the traian the next night to Beijing. Here are the other pics I uploaded.
We’ve been in Beijing for a few days. We are basically hanging out and trying to come to an agreement on what to do next. I’ll write again probably very soon.
Be well, all of you.