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Published: October 3rd 2008
Quick note: I'm still catching up on posting the stuff I wrote while on our trip...we are back in Shanghai safe and sound. Many of the trip photos were taken by Mark, so I wanted to credit his efforts. He took some fabulous shots that really capture what we saw and experienced.
Wednesday October 1, 2008
We met some other western looking tourists at the hotel breakfast. They ended up sitting at our table and what do you know—they are also “from” Shanghai and are here on vacation. This couple and their daughter are from France and we all chatted over breakfast. We saw them again at our first stop of the day, an ancient village called Xidi (She-Dee—insert your joke here about what that sounds like). Among the hundreds if not thousands of people there, we ran into people we recognized. Yet another small world moment on this journey.
Xidi is a 1000 year old village and a very popular tourist destination for people on holiday this week. We shoved our way through some very narrow and crowded streets and saw a lot of older architecture that has been preserved. We also saw the people who still
live in this town. Some were selling food or trinkets while others were just going about their daily business amidst the huge crowds of visitors. The highlight of the visit to Xidi was our lunch. Just when I was wondering why we were being led around by a rather quiet tour guide who was clearly feeling ill, he justified his existence with a pretty cool lunch. We were waiting outside a restaurant when he came running up to us with a big smile. He had secured us a table in the house of an older building that also has a restaurant. There were only 2 tables in the room in which we ate and we were invited to go into the kitchen to pick out our lunch. The kitchen was buzzing with activity and there were many dishes to choose from. We ended up going mostly with vegetables and tofu, and one pork dish with what we thought were potatoes but what turned out to be more like squash. The food was good (again Mark and I ate happily) but the kids were desperate for some rice to fill them up again. I had ordered it but they forgot about
it, so Emily bravely marched back into the kitchen and asked for rice in Chinese and moments after she returned to the table, our rice appeared. We ate in what seemed to be the living room of the house, and a couple men were watching TV while we ate. It was a little strange but also interesting to see what a real country house looked like.
The second village was Hongcun (Hong-tss-uen) and looked about as old as the first but was actually only 800 years old. The village had been built with water from the mountain running all around the houses. Apparently, this village replaced a previous village that had burned down. The houses are all built of stone and brick, and the water surrounding each house was to guard against fire. The village also has 2 lakes. Hongcun was used for 2 scenes in the movie “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon”. One involving a horse being led over a bridge, and the other involving 2 characters flying over water—the very lake we saw. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but Mark remembered the scenes from the movie. Nathan had a very exciting bargaining experience here and bought a
model built out of bamboo. I will include a picture of Nathan with the artist/salesperson. It’s pretty cool to see the kids get involved in the process like that. He appreciated the 8 Yuan he saved (about $1) and was thrilled to have something so different and interesting to take home as a treasure from the trip. Emily scored another cool wooden doll that I bargained for on her behalf. She just stood there looking adorable which had to have helped my cause.
Tonight’s dinner was our best meal in Huangshan. We might go back tomorrow. The entire meal, including 2 huge beers and 4 bottles of water was about $10. We had a huge feast of all sorts of yummy dishes. This place was a little different. We lined up and there was a guy in charge of the line. This is rare in China. Usually lines are a joke and you get passed and people cut in all the time. This line guy kept people in, well, line. I loved the line guy. Eventually, when you got far enough in line, you are given a card with a number. You take that card downstairs to the food
viewing area where you walk a cafeteria style line and pick out dishes you want. We were a little nervous because the names are all in Chinese, so we weren’t sure how we could order but then we saw a number and a staff person said “write the number”. So we were good. We all picked out different dishes to share and then went back up to wait some more. When our number was called we were told to go to a table. I think we were supposed to take our order form and our table number back downstairs to place our order but I had that confused American look about me and the line guy just did it for me. We got to our table but had to wait for it to be cleaned. Not the most appetizing way to start our meal.
We were seated at the window and soon became a modern art exhibit for the people walking along the street. “American family goes to China… and has dinner.” Very exciting. We had sips of beer, we ate food. Captivating. The guy immediately outside the window was an older man painting fans. He took our pictures
and waved at us throughout our meal. We went and bought a fan for Emily after dinner. The food was great. My favorite was a soup with these really yummy, thick homemade rice noodles. We also had some fabulous dumplings with the soup inside. The table next to us watched with interest to see if we knew how to handle those soupy delights. Of course we did. We are not rookies (anymore).
After shopping and walking around after dinner, we were ready to go home. Slight issue with that plan. No taxis. This place is FULL of tourists (and by tourists I mean Chinese touring around China). Very few westerners here. We’ve seen a few each day, but mostly the visitors are Chinese from other parts of China. We walked a bit and there were lots of people waiting for taxis too. Finally, I spotted one and it slowed down, so I jumped the traffic fence to get in it before someone beat me to it. We all cheered for my fabulous find and the taxi driver gleefully informed us he was going to charge us 10 instead of 5 RMB (10RMB=$1.50). Whatever. It’s holiday prices, but still a
deal, and we were safely headed back to the hotel. We almost split up and went in those bikes with carriages in back, but I’m glad we didn’t have to go that route. It is a little chilly out at night here, and we were all ready to get back to the hotel.
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Linda
non-member comment
Your kids are amazing me...bargaining in the street, reminding the cook in Chinese about the rice. Well, actually, I'm not amazed...they are consistently living up to their intentions made in Evanston to be adventurous in China.