Qianling Park

Today Caitlin and I went to Qianling Park. We decided to walk, something I probably wouldn't have done on my own but it was really cool actually to walk across the city. We used a map of Guiyang from my Lonely Planet and hardly got lost. By the way, I could write a better guide to Guiyang already. Although it's been somewhat helpful, one example of how it shortchanges Guiyang is that they just say there are a bunch of bars and lounges and don't list any details about the good ones, which I find strange, because the nightlife is huge here and they usually tell you things like that in these guides. I like the city more and more though. It is very modern but also very Chinese with the street food and cheap stores everywhere, and the locals are very nice. We reached a street that led up to Qianling that was pretty cool. It was lined with these huge shady trees and lots of small shops. The park itself is very big and includes trails up the mountain. There are lots of people playing music and dancing there and wild monkeys everywhere. We hiked up to the temple- apparently I am in terrible shape because Caitlin was like running up the stairs and I was huffing and puffing. It was a big temple, very beautiful. We ate at the vegetarian restaurant. There was a fake beef tofu dish that they poured sauce over and it boiled, it was very very good and different from other food I've had. At first, we weren't sure we'd be able to order but luckily there was a guy who spoke quite good English who helped us out a lot. He was nice, around our age I think, and gave us his contact information in case we had any questions about Guiyang.

 

After that we tried to find the cable car that goes up and down the mountain and hiked to the top. It almost killed me and there was a great view of the city but we couldn't find the cable car so we hiked back down. There is this lake that you get to by going through this tunnel through the mountain- it's very long.

 

We were tired- well at least I was- so we took a taxi home. Luckily we have this huge pagoda near us so we can just tell the taxi driver "wencheng da" to take us back to school.

 

I will try to post some pictures soon though my camera ran out of battery so I might have to steal Caitlin's. I still feel sort of weird just taking picture of the city since everyone is already staring at the funny-looking foreigner. But I will try to take more pictures.