Qing Yan Ancient Town

Last Thursday, my day off, Yang Haiyang (one of my Chinese teachers)
took me to Qing Yan ancient town. We went with one of her friends from
university, a girl named Jessica who is a Guiyang local. She is really
funny and speaks pretty good English.

Getting there was a bit of a trip. First we took a mini bus to Huaxi,
a park outside of the city. I haven't taken the minibus in Guiyang
before, so that was interesting. They try to cram as many people in as
possible. Also, whenever they pass a crossing with a cop they ask
everyone who's standing to duck. Oh man, one of those "only in China"
experiences. After that, we switched to a different minibus which
drove along slowly with a woman shouting "Qing Yan!" out the door,
trying to get people who want to go to the ancient town.

The ancient town itself has old style buildings and stairs, and nice
views of the mountains and a much more "countryside" feel. Check out
my pictures from the last entry! First them we did was try some
specialty foods. One is pig's feet. My Chinese friends were excited
for this treat. I'm, even now, not that used to eating things where
you have to pick off of the bone. The little bit of meat is good, and
there is some fatty skin. I also had something that's hard to
describe- it's rose flavored porridge with peanuts and other stuff.
That I really enjoyed, it was tasty and sweet and like eating a
flower.

The town is definitely touristy, although we didn't go on the weekend
so it wasn't so crowded and I was the only foreigner. The shopping was
quite fun, as there are a lot of Chinese crafts and especially crafts
of the minority people in Guiyang, and some Guizhou province
specialties, like the vats of chilies that you could sample. Also
cowboy hats- why? I don't know. I bought some earrings especially. The
shopping is a bit cheaper than in the city.

One specialty seems to be these rose flower flavored candies. I bought
some of those. There is also this candy they sell everywhere. They
flatten it with these giant mallets, and it is nutty- sort of an
inside-of-a-butterfingers texture. Kate, you know what I'm talking
about- I brought you some as a gift!

There was also archery everywhere. As you probably know, I taught
archery at summer camp for 3 summers so I was excited. I tried it out-
their equipment was sort of bad. But they could probably tell that I
knew what I was doing! After that, we went to the temple and the girls
showed me how to pray. Also, outside of the temple, random people took
pictures of me. This happens to me plenty, but my Chinese friends were
quite surprised (and maybe a little embarassed it).

There were a few wedding photos going on too, which was pretty. You'll
see in my photos the fields in the background around late afternoon.
Yang Haiyang and I ended our day back in the city eating Xinjiang
handmade noodles, which I always enjoy.