Hugh and Mara

Overheard on the street today “It’s nothing like it was 10 years ago. Then it was just a little village”

Today our little feet are tired from walking the concrete. We did find two karst formations to go up on but unfortunately the view was so cloudy it was hard to see. It truly must be mystical when the sun shines through misty clouds. But not today. And not in the forecast for tomorrow. However it is to get a tad warmer so we are considering renting bikes.  Besides, lots of the Chinese are doing it. 

We noticed it takes awhile for things to get going here. 

We also checked out the “agricultural trade market” and had lunch there.

We had pork, not dog. However, this place is famous for dried rat and beer fish. We have not tried either one yet, but the fish is on the list. Not sure if rat is…

 We walked a bit today and saw many other sights, including the 2 below:

 It is interesting to compare our travels in Peru with our travel here in China. Everything seems so much more “touristy”. Every street is lined in shops. Every other shopkeeper saying “hey, lookee, hey you, hey lookee”  ”Business is business and business must grow” said the Onceler in the story The Lorax, but it really makes one think about consumerism. Do we really need that many things?  How about another jade figurine of the fat Buddha? A silk scarf? A t-shirt that says in Chinese characters “I’m single”? Chopsticks set? Luggage? Plastic dancing zebra two inches high?

More shots of the sights we saw:

We actually got to watch them push a wall down with poles lodged to provide leverage. Physics is amazing! No wrecking ball was used in the dismantling of this building!

We watched this couple enter a shop, buy a jacket, and continue. An American business man we chatted with today said that in the past 2 years the one commercialized tourist nature of the town has expanded beyond the one street it used to encompass to the whole downtown and beyond for all we know.

We did, however, get Hugh’s jacket zipper replaced for less than $5 thanks to the recommendation of where to go from the Yangshuo Flowers Youth Hostel “knitting club” -the young women working here are knitting whenever they are not working! Knitting may possibly be one of two true “handicrafts” here. 

Tags: yangshuo

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 27th, 2008 at 11:03 am and is filed under China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.