These house shoes have super flexible soles that are NOT gummy black.I fell in love with them, and they had that abstract red/black pair in my size. I sent photos to my wife from the store and she selected a pair too.
My hotel reservation in Guiyang was at a hotel I had stayed at on several previous visits. In the past it had been a great place with fantastic, friendly, helpful staff.
But on this trip, right away it was clear the place had really deteriorated. The new staff at the reception desk were nowhere near as helpful as before, my room was shabby, and to top it off, street repairs with noisy jackhammers made it difficult to sleep. I decided to find a different hotel for the rest of my stay in Guiyang.
Searching available rooms I focused on the general area of my original hotel. in the general area of the first one. I made a (cancel-able) reservation at a hotel two blocks away. The nightly cost was a bit more, but it was presented as a room with a (city) view.
I left my luggage at the original hotel, and walked over to this “possible” new place to scope it out. A lady showed me a room on the 7th floor that was head and shoulders above the first hotel. But when I looked out the window? Meh. Pretty much no view. So I said to the woman “city view? I don’t think so!” So she suggested we look at a room on the 12th floor. Well, a nice view! (sometimes you need to make a point of asking!) See photo.
So I switched hotels.
Later in the afternoon I asked the desk clerk if there was a guest laundry room.
Yep, a self service one.
She said that detergent was available at the front desk.
So latter I brought down a bunch of clothes in a bag. A desk clerk led me to the laundry room.
Self service? Perhaps I just seemed too stupid to figure out how to do it. Or maybe she was just being respectful of an old man.
She loaded the clothes.
She added the detergent, she set the control dials.
I was confused by the last setting screen. “How long will it run?” I asked. “Shall I come back in an hour?”
“No. When the washer is done, we will move the clothes to the dryer and handle that. Come back to the front desk around 8:30 and we’ll have it all ready for you.”
Wow… I really got spoiled!
The desk clerks were all smiles after that. And indeed very friendly any time I was coming or going!
Howie’s wished me goodbye with a smiling sincere bear hug before I disappeared into the secured area of the train station . I thought about how fortunate I was to have met him by chance years ago when I was visiting Suzhou. 🙂
I boarded the train- destination Guiyang.
The route began by heading toward Chongqing .
Along the way we passed by some nice rural scenery.
After a bit, daylight gave way to dusk, and then the dark of night.
It’s all good. 😊
well, I suppose it is appropriate that it was raining yesterday when we visited Dujiangyan. After all, that ancient engineering masterpiece was built to control flooding and also distribute water for irrigation!
Since I had neglected to bring s raincoat to China, I bought a cheap plastic on there at the site. Howie sort of bragged about his jacket. But about 20 minutes later sought out a vendor to buy his own rain suit.
Later I noticed some people with cheap rubber galoshes. My shoes were in great danger of becoming soaked, so I said to Howie – hey, let’s see if that pocket vendor stand has booties. Yep, they did. Howie and I both bought some. The lady there saw me struggling to get mine on. So she sat me on a stool and insisted on stretching them over my clown shoes herself. 🙂 Such a sweetie.
While wandering on my last day in Nanyang, I encountered a friendly group of musicians who were setting up to practice.
My request to photograph them led to them insisting I join in.
But I have no musical talent!
No problem they said, and this was the result.
(no part of the conversation was in English and most of the communication involved one of them saying something in Chinese, me insisting I don’t know any Chinese and couldn’t understand, then communication occurred through gestures and smiles.)
After Datong we had another smooth ride on the Chinese high-speed rail network. Destination- Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi province.
There is a lot to see in Taiyuan, but unfortunately my time was short, so I really only was able to squeeze in a visit to the twin pagodas.
My friend Jim had even less time because he was flying to Nanjing in order to get back to his hometown of Tongling in time for work.
The inside of one of the pair of pagodas was open and one could (theoretically!) climb a dark slick staircase up to the top of that pagoda.
From that location there is a view over the city.
I soon began to question my judgement and my decision to ascend. Fine for younger, more nimble bodies. But this slow, tired old man of 69 decided that about halfway up was plenty far enough!
Well, as is often the case going down can seem more dangerous than ascending!
Adjacent to the towers was a temple complex.
Located16 km from Datong this remarkable concentration of Buddhist statues includes some 50,000 statues, some protected completely within about 50 caves. Initial work to create this artistic marvel began a bit more than 1500 years ago.
Ubicado a 16 km de Datong, esta notable concentración de estatuas budistas incluye unas 50,000 estatuas, algunas protegidas completamente dentro de aproximadamente 50 cuevas. El trabajo inicial para crear esta maravilla artística comenzó un poco más de 1500 años.
It is considered to be among the three most significant concentrations of Buddhist statues in China. (The other two are the Mogao Grottoes near Dunhuang in Gansu province [been there!], and Longmen grottoes near Luoyang in Hennan province [yep, there too!])
Se considera que se encuentra entre las tres concentraciones más significativas de estatuas budistas en China. (¡Los otros dos son las grutas de Mogao cerca de Dunhuang en la provincia de Gansu [¡He estado allí!], Y “Grutas de la Puerta del Dragón” cerca de Luoyang en la provincia de Hennan [Sí, allí también!])
After visiting the grottoes, it was time to head back to Datong to visit some other great things including a “Nine Dragon Screen”, a temple or two, and the old city wall.
Después de visitar las grutas, fue hora de regresar a Datong para visitar otras cosas importantes, incluida una “Pantalla Dragon”, un templo o dos, y la antigua muralla de la ciudad.
A six-or-so hour train ride from Zhengzhou brought me to Datong.
The trip involved leaving Henan province behind and heading north through the loess covered land of Shanxi province.
Along the way there was ample evidence of the depth of China’s commitment to green energy. A very large number of buildings were topped by either photovoltaic solar panels and/or hot water heat panels.
We even passed entire hillsides covered with photovoltaic panels!
My friend Jim and I had second class seats, which are about as narrow as a tourist class seat on an airplane, but have much more leg room! And China’s high speed trains have an even smoother ride than the excellent “AVE” trains in Spain.
We saw some of the sites of and near Datong the afternoon of our arrival, and got a chance to see much more the next day!
Here is a small selection of snapshots from that first day:
The hotel (Pipa Old Inn) I had selected is within the old walled city and takes its name from the traditional upright stringed “Pipa” as displayed in the statue.
One of the famous sights of Datong is actually over an hour outside town. It is the “Hanging Temple”.
The first time I saw a photo of this, I honestly thought it was a mock up on the theme of “What would a Chinese Mesa Verde look like”.
Lists, lists, lists…. China has had many historic capital cities over the many centuries, no millennia! of its existence. Lists of these capitals generally follow the format of: the 4 greatest ancient capitals… the 6, the 7, the 8…
In the near future I will be working on the sixth and final installment of my “Capital cities of China”. That set of videos mostly focused on the capitals of provinces and autonomous regions. But the last installment will include an overview of the 8 most important ancient capital cities of China. Included in that list is Zhengzhou due to it’s role during the Shang dynasty (roughly 3,600 to 3,000 years ago!)
Among the relics from that period are the earthen remains of the city walls of “Xiao” (as Zhengzhou was known at the time).
