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Published: October 12th 2008
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It was a squeeze
Betty-Anne on her top bunk - no crane needed but it would have helped. China celebrated its National Day with a few days holiday, between 1 - 4 October. Our school, for some unknown reason (at that time), told us that they were off for the full week, commencing Monday 29 Sep. As the foreign teachers didn’t want to stay around Yancheng for a full week, we all took off in different directions. We went west, to the centre of China, towards Xian, but stopped at a city called LuoYang, in Henan province. The main attraction of LuoYang is the World Heritage Listed Buddhist Grottoes, just south of the city centre.
If you have ever travelled by train in China, you will understand what we went through, as China train travel is certainly unique. Also, during any Chinese holiday period, public transport is at its most crowded and seats on anything are a premium. Generally you can only buy your train ticket 5 days in advance, but for special holiday periods, this is a few days earlier (buses are only 3 days). You cannot buy a return ticket, as you need to buy that at your destination. Returning within the holiday period was not a “given”, once we had secured our ticket to LuoYang,
Public calligraphy
Water calligraphy in the park. My "Hello" in English didn't look the same as the ancient lettering art. but that is part of the adventure - we knew we would return to Yancheng, we just didn’t know when.
There are two direct trains passing through Yancheng and west through LuoYang. One left our station at 18.43, arriving at LuoYang at 05.20 am and the other at 13.55, arriving at 00.34 am the following morning. We opted for the later departure, as we thought this would give us a sleep overnight, and a full days excursion after breakfast in LuoYang. It also saved the extra nights accommodation, as the hotels were fairly packed as well. No doing. We could only get upper birth Hard Sleepers on the early train, which meant arriving just after midnight. Oh well, we just had to book another night in our hotel - can’t, hotel full. We found another nearby hotel which had a room, and then adjusted our trip planning.
Sleeping on a train can be a challenge for some at the best of time, but having to climb up to the top bunk at our age was also a bit of a challenge, as the bunks are small and no headroom. Still, at least we got tickets, as these were
Drum Band
This was one of the many forms of entertainment around the park area. all they had left from Yancheng for three days. We survived, but it was pleasant getting into our hotel room, and we didn’t even complain about being given two single beds instead of the queen/king ordered. Even with two in the one single bed meant we had more room each than when in the train bunk.
We were told to make sure that on arrival in LuoYang, we purchased our train ticket. We were told that unlike any other time you are at the station to buy tickets, at least around midnight, there won’t be any long queues! Wrong. At 1.00 am, there were four queues each with about 10 people in them. We left after obtaining our tickets about 40 minutes later (no such thing as a quick purchase here), and the queues were still just as long. Anyway, the good news is that we got return tickets and we also got lower bunks, even though they were Hard Sleepers. Bad news is that one was Carriage 10, Bed 17, and the other ticket was for Carriage 13, bed 12. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers, eh? These were also the last tickets for a couple of days,
Martial Arts Training
There was plenty of room around these girls with their twirling swords. but at least they were on the right day, which meant an overnight back to Yancheng.
Oh, about the extra holidays. We woke on the Monday morning on the day we were to catch the train later that afternoon, only to find there was no electricity in the school. No big deal, this happens from time to time. After 3 or 4 hours of us wanting to do last minute washing and internet confirmations, we asked about the power. “Oh, maybe the power is off until 8 o’clock tonight, and will be off again all day on the 2nd”. Woops, they forgot to tell us - again (this is the frustrating part about living in China - noone tells the foreigners anything. We had a swag of food in the freezer, and weren’t prepared to have it defrost and re-freeze a couple of times, so we contacted some friends who were not going anywhere, and got them to collect it. Empty fridge on departure. On returning back to our apartment at 4.30 am on the 3rd (the day after power was to be back on) - no electricity. Later on, we again asked what was going on, and were
A busy street
Activity was everywhere and the whole place was lively with movement and sound. told, “maybe 50 hours, maybe 56 hours”. Had we been told earlier that this was a planned outage for repairs or something, you can work around it and make alternative arrangements. Not being told now seems to be a “quaint” Chinese custom and again, we got caught “short”. Now we found out why our school had the extra two days holidays - no power in our area for a few days.
Back to our holiday. The temperatures over here are starting to cool down fairly rapidly, and being further inland, we were worried about getting too cold. However, the temperatures were perfect for us, being about 25 during the day and only down to 16 at night.
LuoYang took us by surprise. As we had to change hotels on our first day in town, we just ambled around the city centre, which has quite a large park complex, then we were off to do some sightseeing in the afternoon. Yancheng doesn’t really have a community or central place, where people can gather. Our city is too spread out. LuoYang has an old city centre and a new one, too. We were housed just off the new centre park
Shady streets
Many of the streets were covered with spread canopies which looked attractive and provided shade to pedestrians and cyclists. area. It may have been the festival, but LuoYang was alive with people and activity. There were all types using the park, doing all sorts of things from Water Calligraphy, and teaching the kids how to do it, to martial Arts practice with swords, and all sorts of music, entertainment and interactions. It was great to be part of it.
We later found our way to the old town and this was also impressive. They had an old city wall, which no longer exists, but they have created an ancient village atmosphere with wall replicas. Life here was also busy with food, shops, activities and life. All around the city area, there were people enjoying each others company on the street frontage. Not many card games, but mahjongg, Chinese Chess and life in general on the streets - washing , cooking preparations, cooking, kids playing - it was full of life and totally unlike Yancheng. We really enjoyed our time there.
We visited the Grottoes (along with 5 million Chinese and other foreigners) GuanLin Temple, White Horse Temple, the Royal Horse & Chariot Pitts Museum, and the Museum of Ancient Tombs. LuoYang dates back to about 4,000 BC,
Trolley bus
This is the first time we have come across the electric trolley busses. and boasts being a Capital with numerous Emperors. Some of their history stories are not that accurate (a bit far fetched, actually), but this area is still old and full of ancient Chinese history. This city was also along one of the old Silk Roads routes, so they traded with the west. They had even recovered old Roman Gold Coins from one of the early Tombs.
The history was great, but we found LuoYang to be friendly, lively, well set-out, colourful and attractive. The Peony is their local emblem, and the city is full of colourful Peony flower paintings and signs. We thought that if you were based here, you would spend many a weekend exploring the city and surrounds. We didn’t even have time to visit the Shaolin Temple, which is the birthplace of Kung Fu. We highly recommend visiting LuoYang if you get the chance, and we would certainly not hesitate in returning there.
Next break will be a couple of days in Shanghai and our final adventure will be in the ice and snow Festival of Harbin, before retuning home.
We hope to post one last story of our life and doings here in
Old city centre
This is a rehabilitated ancient street, where they used old buildings and re-created the ancient buildings. YanCheng before we say goodbye to the place. This offers another chance to have some photos in different places so not to lose them.
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