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Published: October 19th 2009
Hello everybody!
Still having issues with apostrophes on this site for some reason, bear with me...
Today was just a travel day. It was a bit less comfortable than I had thought, but it was actually a pretty awesome day altogether, so nothing to complain about.
Our train left Pingyao at 11:45 (in theory at least), so we had time to go and grab some breakfast at a place just down the road that does really good Western food - the Chinese food here seems to be of dubious character, so finding good toast that hasnt been sweetened beyond recognition is a bit of a boon.
Then we headed to the train. There are obviously not a lot of westerners catch a train from Pingyao, in fact I don think there are terribly many westerners who come to Pingyao unless they
e on a tour, so there were a few stares. One young guy just stared at us for 10 minutes, then got up the courage to say "Hello", and then he and his girlfriend were so embarrassed they hid their faces for a few minutes. When they emerged from their hiding place they went back to
staring though! When we got on the train we sat down on the bottom bunk - I should have taken some photos of the layout of the beds but I forgot to, and they were already full of people trying to sleep so I thought we might give it a miss. Anyway, we met a few ladies who were from the local area, and after the obligatory telling us how beautiful we were, we had a bit of a conversation with them. They eat some variety of seeds here in the most amazing way. They look exactly like a bird taking the shell off. The hold it in their fingers, put the sharp end in their mouth and crack the seed twice vertically with their teeth, and then twist it, and the seed just falls straight out.
Lloyd had some of the seeds so we were trying it out, we were rubbish. Wed either bite too hard or too soft, so the shell wouldn open at all or it would splinter open into our mouths, and even after an hour of trying, I was still only getting 2 or 3 out of 10 to actually open properly. It seems more like excercise eating those things, I know that if I had to survive on them Id starve, I just can eat them quickly enough! But the Chinese ladies were amazing. In the time I ate one, they would have eaten five or six, and been having a conversation in between. They were sitting on a little table and the pile of shells was growing and growing and growing. It was a bit gross actually when you consider that every one of them had been in their mouths, but anyway, doesn matter.
The most amazing bit was when one of the mothers in another section brought her little daughter (who couldn have been more than 2) to show us how she could eat the seeds. The little girl ate a couple but then turned around to her Mum and said that she was frightened!
I can believe how much I have to write about a train trip!
After the seeds fiasco, Lloyd and I decided we should find the dining cart and see what was on offer. We asked one of the staff and she pointed towards the front of the train so we wandered down that way. When we got to a locked door she opened it, we walked a few more carriages down, and got to the dining cart. It wasn until after that we realised we weren supposed to be in there, we just got in because we were white! Some Chinese people tried to get a seat in there but they were told they had to pay RMB25 each if they wanted to stay, and they had to get some food. We just had a couple of beers and stayed there for an hour or so. One of the greatest things ever happened while we were there. Halfway through the first beer a policeman came up to me. He looked friendly, but Im not a big fan of having a policeman standing over me talking to me in a language I can understand - I knew I hadn done anything wrong, but thats not always enough for the police here I don think. When I thought about it afterwards, I realised I actually did know what he was saying, but I need a bit of time to prepare myself before I start listening to Chinese, my brain has to switch to another mode I think.
Anyway, he was just asking me where I was from, and from then on Lloyd took over. This is where one of the greatest things ever happened. The policeman was telling Lloyd how he thought Westerners were better looking than Asian people (which is very debatable, but all the Chinese think its true), and that Western babies are much cuter than Chinese babies (an outright lie). The only thing that Asians had going for them was their skin - he thought we had skin like rats. But then he started comparing Lloyd and me. I won on every count, everything about me is more beautiful than Lloyd in the eyes of this policeman! After 5 minutes Lloyd said hed had enough of hearing about it and told the guy we had to go now. It was hillarious.
So we walked back to our beds and we had a bit of a rest. When I got up again there was a little girl so I said hello to her and she looked all embarrassed, and I walked past her to sit on our bottom bunk again. After about 10 minutes the same little girl came running up to me and started talking. In China, little kids call older people Uncle or Aunty, so she was asking me all these questions. The conversation went like this:
Little Girl: "Uncle, are you going to Datong?"
Me: "Yes, we
e going to Datong"
Little Girl: "Uncle, where are you staying in Datong?"
Me: "We
e staying in a hotel"
Little Girl: "Uncle, we can take you to your hotel" (I think her Mum said to say that)
Me: "Thats very kind, but we don know where we
e staying yet, but thank you very much"
A few moments passed and then the little girl trotted back up to us and said
"Uncle, you can stay at our house"
This one I was pretty sure didn come from her Mum, so we said that we already had somewhere to stay (which wasn entirely true), so she was happy with that.
We still had a few hours left on this trip, but from that moment I was this little girls best friend, she would run up to me and punch me and Id make a face and shed think it was the funniest thing shed ever seen. Shed cough and Id cover my mouth to cough and she would burst into hysterics. She try to tickle me by digging her index fingers into my arm, shed slap me, shed try to scare me - nothing would tire me out. On the other hand, I would tire out very quickly. But for some reason, whenever Im playing with kids, even though I know if I do it they won stop, I keep playing with them.
Its funny here, parents are no where near as concerned about bad people with their kids. They
e happy to let them play with people theyve never met before. They
e still careful with their kids - like when Lloyd threw this little girl up in the air and bashed her head on luggage rack - her Mum had had her eye on her the whole time but didn get upset. Even when the little girl ran up to me to give me a kiss she didn care. That was a bit too much for me though. Im too conditioned to being terrified of kids, so I just blew her a kiss - something she also thought was ridiculously funny!
We finally arrived at Datong and waved goodbye to my little friend, she was so cute. After a bit of a moment trying to find a place we stayed we found somewhere and stayed there the night. They had a free spa and sauna for people staying there, which was a naked one I found at at the last possible moment, so despite my best attempts, I saw Lloyd naked. Again.
For a day spent predominately on a dirty train, we had a great day today.
Hope everybodys doing well. Ive carefully considered all of the offers to pick us up from the airport (not the station, sorry for the confusion, Ive obviously spent way too much time on trains lately!). If it's not too much trouble Troy, it would be great if you could pick us up - makes more sense considering we're virtually neighbours.
I've republished this blog at least 5 times now and I'm starting to get angry. The next one better be easier!
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garrett
non-member comment
the last part of your blog didnt come through mate. Also.....nice handbag!!!