Pingyao it up...
Trip Start
Mar 14, 2006
1
3
9
Trip End
Apr 14, 2006
Pingyao, China
Thursday, March 23, 2006
The general gist of Pingyao is this: really old city; fromer centre of the Chinese banking industry; the monly fully intact city wall in all China; small and quaint.
The city boasts about 30 museums featuring the architecture of the Ming and Qing dynasties. To be honest, most of them are shit. But I think the charm of the cirt lies, not in the museums, but just in the streets of the city itself. And ascending the city wall was a real highlight.
The other fantastic thing about Pingyao has been the people. One of the girls that works at the hostel where I'm staying asked me to help her choose an English name (this seems quite common - other people that work at the hostel are Ed, Jason and Andy). Her chinese name is Ling. So what english name did I choose for her? Lyn. Genius. Brilliant. And she seemed so excited by this...
And so, to the Top 5. The topic for Pingyao is 'Top 5 weird things about Pingyao':
1. Pet Monkeys - they love them. I must have seen at least 10 dudes just hanging out with their version of mini-me on the street. The monkeys love it.
2. Fingerprint ID - state of the art fingerprint ID required to enter each of the 30 or so average museums. Why?
3. Mahjong TV
4. Kenny G - they love him. Must be the only place in the world (except occasionally at one of our reli bashes) where they still play it. Is Kenny G still alive?
5. Golf Buggy taxis - there are virtually no cars in town so all taxi services are done by Golf Buggy. Unfortunately, when travelling from the train station, there isn't much room to put your luggage after the clubs have been stowed in the back.
Off to Xi'an tonight.
Do it...
Comments
Rate it!
Where's that goddamn 'Rate it' button? Definitely rate it, dude! Must use that ingenius 'look like a chinese to fend off hawkers' trick one day. Glad to see you're surviving ... the Kenny G, that is (?what the?). Looks like their ying-yang system is brainwashing you tho(aka the 'brilliant-average' dichotomy)... better watch out...
Yum cha dude!
Who calls their kid Misty?
Mark,
Lesson #1 in naming people.
When people open themselves up like this poor girl did, the opportunity does not repeat itself. Ever. You fool! You missed a golden opportunity to call her something comical like, ...., like...., Lorna. Imagine this poor girl being named 'Lorna'. Oh the shame.
Misty would have been adequate too, but then as one wise man once said, 'who calls their kid Misty?'
Here endeth the lesson.
Poochie.
the tjhungs love kenny g
hey mark its sammy here
i had to make an account just to post a comment. i doubt ill ever use this account again. good to hear about ur adventures they're hilarious.
its true, the tjhungs love kenny g. it was only yesterday when julian and I stumbled upon a Kenny G album in dad's car, which, that same day, he had made a copy of to give to Uncle Kheng.........
names
oh another thing...because I went to an international school with lots of China people, I know what you mean about the english names. But some just don't understand that words don't really qualify as normal names. For example in my class I had Whiskey, Sunsky and Cola. Then you get the simple names like Bob, Alan and Bill. Then you get a girl who's old name was Windy, but recently changed it to Trinity. Her boyfriend's name is Maphisto.................