Trip to Guiyang. Day 1, October 2, 2017

Monday, October 2, 2017

We flew from Jinan to Guiyang and arrived just after 2 p.m.  Our guide was there to collect us and take us to where the others in our tour group had lunch.  We had a small lunch on the airplane.  It was interesting to learn that Guiyang had to level 7 mountains so that they could build their airport.  It is in a mountainous area and there wasn’t any area flat enough to build one otherwise.  The town finds it cheaper to build tunnels than it is to build roads around the mountains.  We went through a lot of tunnels today.

 Our first stop was the ancient village of Qingyan.  It is a village that has small winding streets and LOTS of venders with just about anything Chinese to sell that you can think of.  We walked with the group to an area where you could either walk up a very steep walkway to the top of the wall, or go back through the village and get to the meeting place. 

The city has several "gates."  If there was a special reason that you had distinction in the town, you could have a gate built to commemorate you.  This particular gate was built for a woman who was faithful to her husband and he to her that after he died, she had this gate built to commemorate that faithfulness.

This is the ancient city of Qingyan.  It was built on the top of a hill and was a good fortress with the wall around it.  There was a pretty little lake next to it.

This is the little house that was at the top of the fortress.

Because we had such a small lunch, all we could think of was getting some of the ice cream that we had seen several venders have.  Four years ago, finding good ice cream in China was a rare event.  Seeing at least five venders today was something!  As we were stopped at one vender to see what she had, a Chinese woman came up and in pretty good English helped us.  She was able to tell us what each color of ice cream was, sometimes using a translator app on her phone.  We were so grateful for her help and we were able to make really good choices to fill our ice cream needs. 

It was interesting that the mortar between the brick in Quinyan was a rice paste.  Ted, our guide joked that if you needed to, you could chip of the paste and eat the rice.  

People were amazed to see a group of fifteen Americans walking along the village streets.  People were snapping pictures all around us.  Some asked for permission but a lot didn’t.  I noticed one young woman handing her phone to her mom and trying to get in a picture with us in the back ground and as she turned around to see if she was far enough in the picture, I motioned to her to come close and we had our picture taken together.  Such a simple act made her day!  She was so thrilled to be in a picture with an Anglo person.  The other BYU teachers that we were with were also the same way.  We just had so much fun getting pictures, saying “Hi” back to those who said it to us and a talking to a few that knew more English who would try and talk to us. 

This building was a temple of the Daoists.  It was partially destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and they tried to restore it.  The only part that was original of the murals is the part in the picture below.  It is so sad when we try to destroy our history.  I think China learned a great lesson.

By the time we got to the hotel that night, we were tired and hungry.  We went to the hotel restaurant and ordered a little food.  Some of the others went out, but we had had a long day.

From the top of the wall tower, this was the view looking back at the area we had come from.  I don't know how I got this with NO people in it!