North China Trip Part IV — Pingyao

After we left the Qiao Family Compound, we drove for about an hour until we got to the ancient walled city of Pingyao. The city claims to be 3000 years old. They're very proud to be a world heritage site, and it's created a major tourist draw for them. As a result, it's a bit too touristy — every restaurant boasts that English is spoken and Western Food is served (and western food in China is generally a thing to be avoided if one values one's bowels).

Still, it's a living city; people have houses and live and work within the wall, which blocks out the noise and high-rises of modern Pingyao. It's wonderfully (if not pleasantly) dirty and chaotic, and staying at our hotel felt like living in China hundreds of years ago (although we had indoor plumbing and television).

Pingyao is the only city left that has an intact City Wall. All Chinese cities used to have them, including Beijing. Southpark had one too, in case you saw that episode.


This is me, standing in the middle of the street outside our hotel.

This is the inside of our hotel, which was made up of four courtyards like this one. Lidya is in red in the middle.

The door to our room.

The entry way to our room.

Each room has one large bed, which is basically a giant mat. It's just like the beds in the Forbidden City.

A street. I like streets in China. They all have a very strong character.

Another street.

Flags and incense in the banking museum.

An old church.

A gate, decorated for the new year.

Left to Right: John ("John Bike"), Pooja, Emily, KP, Sovannary, Dave, Nick, Nick ("ROTC Nick", my roommate), and Becca

A donkey near the alley behind the wall.

Three cats hold court on a roof.

There were a lot of people playing pool out on the street.

9 carved dragons. The 9 dragons show up all over the place. They have symbolic meaning.

KP and I standing in front of the main drag. A pretty bad picture, really.

Rows of houses.

We happened upon a lot of interesting instruments of death. Here is a falling spikey thing, operated by Sovannary and KP.

KP and Pooja push the giant rolly spikey thing.

I didn't have much trouble looking worried about standing in front of it. Notice that both of them are marked with a Yin Yang symbol in rivets.


Back at the hotel we ate dinner by candlelight, because the power went out.

After that we warmed ourselves by the traditional new year's fire.

Then it was time for more fireworks.

My favorite picture that I've taken so far on this trip.

Most of the kids hung out in this bar. The owners loved them to death because they spent hundreds of yuan.


KP, John, Julia, and I went to this International Bar and shared Chocolate Cake, Banana Flambe, a Banana Split, and a Yogurt/Muslix Sundae with Asian Pears in it.

I took this picture on the way back to the hotel.

Steppes on hillsides, as we drove back to Beijing.

Nearing Beijing, the landscape gives way to cold desolation. But there were a lot of fireworks among the trees, so somebody lives around here. It was interesting that during the entire trip, we didn't see a single square inch of land that hadn't been dug up, flattened, tunneled, paved, irrigated, or otherwise touched by human hands.