May Day Holiday 4 - Tea Museum, Old Town and Train Ride Home

We were able to sleep in a little this morning, but the guide still wanted to leave by 7 a.m.  After breakfast, we went back to our room to get our luggage, but the key card would not open our door. We tried several times, Eva and Pang tried several times, and then Pang called down to the desk for us.  A maintenance man came up and tried to open it.  Still nothing.  He had to get someone else up there, and they finally got it open.

Meanwhile, I had to use the bathroom in Eva’s room.  There wasn’t any toilet paper.  Each day, they had given us a very small roll of toilet paper in the room, and I wondered why there was so little of it.  It was really only about an inch of paper on the roll (no center tube).  The reason I discovered why the hotel does this is, because the Chinese take whatever is left on the roll with them!  

The whole door business made us about ten minutes late.  Several times during this tour, we had made the group late, and I hadn’t planned on being the late ones that morning, but there was nothing we could do about it.  

The lanterns greet you on the street leading to the old village..

Our first stop was at a Tea Museum.  This area is famous for their tea growing.  Fields were scattered all over the mountain sides.  They told the history and about the process of readying the tea leaves.  Then we were taken to a room with long table and stools to sit on.  They made tea for us.  

The first was a green tea.  We tried the chrysanthemum tea instead.  Eva prefers hers with a little sugar, but I liked it the way it was.  Last, they brought around a red tea.  When I was pretty certain that Eva and Pang weren’t looking, I dumped it into the bowl of left-over tea.  

After the tea was the hype about the great deals you could get on the tea!  When it was finally over (someone bought over 1000 RMB worth!), we got back on the bus, and they took us to a tourist shopping area.  It is in an old part of town that they keep for touristy foods and mementos to be sold.  We had a fun time with Eva and Pang tasting local foods and looking at local crafts.  We spent about 800 RMB in this area for some delicious foods and had a great time with some of the shop people. 

Entering the old village part.

A main street of the old village.

After lunch at a restaurant, we were taken to the train station for the five-hour ride home.  I really do enjoy the high-speed trains.  They are not as noisy as airplanes, and they can get you there fairly fast.  We did some talking, sleeping, and eating of our snacks on the way. 

We got a taxi at the train station, and we were glad to get home.  The Chinese beds are rather hard to sleep on, so our softer mattress was nice.

An old building on the street.

Interesting style to the building.

Some of the details on the old building.

Sunday, we went to church.  We were a little late getting off, so we decided that if a taxi came before the bus 16 did, we would try and get a taxi.  It just so happened that we had barely missed a bus 16, and an empty taxi was coming, so we hailed it down and got a ride to church.  

Most of the other BYU teachers had been traveling also, so we caught up on each other’s adventures after lunch.  Jurgita and Huang Songsong were able to come in from Zouping to be with us, so we had a nice talk also.