May 14, 2013 - Pingyao

Molly and I walked through the tourist streets (quiet at that time of the morning) to Ping'Yao city wall and climbed up at North East Gate. There are old gates at the four major points of the compass and a few more have been added since the original buldings. I think I've lost the plot in terms of Qing / Ming and inceasingly Tong so I'm not going to attempt to be accurate ! The wall is about 18' wide in places, narrower in others. The old city now "a protected site of tourist interest" enclosed, the new city of PingÝoa, wealthy and fordward...

May 13, 2013 - Red Lantern to Pingyao

Last night was very hot, very noisy and despite that I did manage to sleep a few hours. Taiyuan looks 'ok' this morning: not as prosperous as DaTong but friendy, busy and industrious. Lots of people using the equivalent of Boris's bikes, liveried in bright green and bright orange, Breakfast was a challenge. I shouldn't have asked for a cold plate, cold milk or tea, all of which caused a huge amount of hilarity, not to menton ingenuity: a waiter put a cup of hot milk in a bowl of cold water ..... not quite what I had in mind. The Twin...

Jun 8, 2011 - Dragon Boat Holiday

Iris has been off school for the last 3 days, Mon-Weds., for the Dragon Boat Holiday here in China. I've been told countless times what the festival celebrated, but I still don't really understand. Something about a guy jumping into a river and the festival is in his remembrance? Anyway, we went to the next providence over, the Shanxi Providence, which is different than the Shaanxi Providence that I live in now. They have different pronunciations supposedly, but my Americanness can't tell the difference other than the spelling. But in...

May 23, 2010 - China is different!!

China es un país diferente. Y cada vez que uno lo visita sigue siendo, a la vez, diferente a los demás y diferente a si misma. El desarrollo tan tremendo que tiene el país esta presente en todas partes, y el filón que han encontrado en el turismo también. El país entero esta en continua reconstrucción. En realidad esa es la mentalidad china: muchas cosas de bajo coste y menor duración y mucha rotación de productos. Supongo que ese es el medio para mantener el ritmo frenético del país. Pero en realidad no somos muchos los guiris por estos...

May 4, 2010 - Military Museum And Pingyao!!!!!

Last Wednesday we went to the Military Museum. At the military Museum I climbed around on a real tank. after that I went on a anti-air gun then in a real air fighter!!!!!!!!! On Friday we went to Pingyao. It took us 3 hours on a train and then 1.5 hours in a bus, and 5 minutes in a battery powered car to get there. At Pingyao we lived in a Guest House. This was a traditional Chinese house with lots of small rooms arranged around courtyards. The next day in the morning we went to the Pingyao wall. On the top of the wall there was a tower...

May 4, 2010 - Holiday weekend

For a different perspective on our trip, look at the children's travel journals: http://www.mytripjournal.com/Suzanna2010 http://www.mytripjournal.com/Ben2010 Monday: Lessons, Hongqiao toy market Tuesday: Lessons, Paul out, Karyn swimming with Suzanna and Ben Wednesday: Military museum Thursday: Paul, Suzanna and Ben at ripsticking, ball games, skipping, catch, computer games, Karyn to Forbidden City Friday: Lessons, packing, train to Pingyao Saturday: Tours of Pingyao and Qiao family compound Sunday: Tours of Chang family compound and...

May 4, 2010 - The Military museum and a weekend in Pingyao.

Hey Every One! A few days ago we went to Military museum. Before we went inside we went on the missile equipped boat. We climbed all around on it and turned the steering wheel and pushed levers up and down. I really liked it and then we went inside. There were lots of different types of guns in there and it was quite interesting. My favorite bit was when Dad got me a ticket for the tank section where you could climb around on a tank and go inside it. There were also a lot of anti air guns that you could climb on. Ben had already got a...

Apr 15, 2010 - Ancient City Pingyao

First time I met Stfano and Susanna was on the morning 15 April at Xian Sofitel Renmin Square hotel. A typical Italian man with slightly curled hair kind and Charming, Susana is beautiful girl with golden hair and blue eyes beautiful and attractive. We haven't waste any time to start our journey after the hotel Checkout. Leaving the hotel was 8:40 am it took about only 10 min to get Xiewang overpass and Xiyu high way. We arrived our first stop of Pingyao ancient city at 1:10 pm, and the odometer shows 586km. Pingyao Ancient City was built...

Sep 28, 2009 - Pingyao - Day 11,12,13

28 September '09 We met quite a few people in the hostel who had been in China for various amounts of time and reasons. We swapped stories of troublesome times, which was reassuring to know we weren’t the only ones having a tough time getting around. We sat outside on the street, which is very pretty at night with all the lights. Most passers by shouted out ‘Hello’ from their bikes. Children are told not to wonder the alley ways at night as they are meant to be haunted by ghosts, we can see why they believe this as this old city can look...

Sep 27, 2009 - Moving on to the lovely Pingyao - Day 11

Early morning rise again, this time acutaly looking forward to spending the day on the train to rest our poor legs. We had nice soft seats on a much better train for 9 hours to Taiyuan, but was really crowded. Not much to do in Taiyuan apart from catch a connecting train. The train station however is said to be the cleanest in China, and this appeared to be so. This is the first time we saw beggars and tramps, and when ordering a pancake from a street vendor we managed to gather an audience of about 20 people who found us ordering a pancake...

May 17, 2008 - BUSTED.... the screenplay, draft one!

‘BUSTED IN CHINA’ written by: Trevor Swift & Meredith Kushnir based on a true story PINGYAO, CHINA - DAY TIME It is a sunny & bright day. TREVOR, MEREDITH & FAYE sit in a narrow cobblestone alleyway eating lunch at a street noodle vendor’s humble restaurant. Their belongings are strewn around them carelessly including, a large Canon camera which sits idly on the table to MEREDITH’s right. There are other people enjoying noodles at nearby tables, gossiping in the typical fashion of a small town. A Polish couple sit across from them happily...

Apr 30, 2008 - Pingyao

First stop the Yungang Grotto - a huge area of 20 caves carved out of the mountain around 1500 years ago, with Buddhas by the thousand - huge to tiny - carved out of the stone and decorated and painted. Incredible accomplishment. Again we are objects of curiousity, blonde australian in particular gets requests to be photographed with. Not all friendly tho, one old woman almost spat at the 'white devils'. Then onto road for long boring bus trip to Pingyao. Pingyao is ancient walled city, pretty intact in spite of the revolution, as didn't...