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| cutest car on the road! the panda :) |
As I mentioned in my last post, there's nothing more American than a good old fashioned road trip. Thanks to one of R's colleagues, who I'll call A, and his adorable car which we affectionately call the "panda" (notice the resemblance?), on the 4th of July we embarked on an epic road trip. Armed with baked goods and google maps we set off to find adventure, and find it we did.
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| 兴城 xingcheng old city |
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| flowers that matched my shirt |
Admittedly our expectations were low to start, and that made the trip all that much better when we'd stumble upon something wonderful. Adventuring definitely takes persistance and an immense amount of flexibility, but I think that is why it's so rewarding when it works out. Granted, in China you're taking the very real risk that the places you'll go could be overcrowded, cheesy, fake, dirty, etc. but what if they're not?
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| 兴城-xingcheng Confucian temple |
Our first stop of the trip was in a little town called Xingcheng in our very own Liaoning province. Xingcheng has one of the best preserved ancient city gates in China (we're told) and wikipedia says the gates above were built in the 1400s. They were impressive and extensive (there about 6 structures like the on above that we saw around the Old city). They also had a Confucian temple with a fossil collection. You might think that is a unique combination, but in Liaoning where some of the most amazing fossil finds of the twentieth century have occurred, you'd be wrong. A number of tourist attractions also boast fossil collections.
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| 北戴河红石路－beidaihe hongshi street |
We pressed on after lunch to the lovely seaside town of Beidiahe. With R navigating we actually found ourselves in a bit of a kerfuffle. R had found the names of a couple cheap reasonable hotels on qunar.com (the travel search arm of the chinese website Baidu) and so he steered us in that direction. Unfortunately it was after we drove the length of Hongshi street that we realized- it's a pedestrian's only street. Faced with a police roadblock and officers unwilling to move the metal blockade I told R to jump out of the car and move it himself so A could drive through and we'd be spared the longest reverse trip. As we sped away grinning we heard them yell "consulate!" in Chinese in response to our brazen disobedience and special license plates. We hope that they assumed we were Russians like the rest of the foreigners in Beidaihe.
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| our resort for "foreign experts" |
We realized soon after that none of these cheap, clean hotels would admit us since we were foreigners. Frustrated we found the Friendship Hotel- "the Resort for the Foreign Experts" which we were allowed to stay in. It was neither clean nor cheap and I would recommend against staying there, but that's where you end up for a night when you don't plan ahead and all in all we were ok with that. There's a Holiday Inn BeiDaihe that does accept foreigners and I'd guess is a much better option if you're planning a trip.
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| I felt a little closer to my Florida home with the neon dolphins |
We enjoyed great conversation in a rooftop cafe overlooking Bohai Bay and it felt a little more like the Fourth of July ought to. Unfortunately a huge thunder storm cut short our pursuit of Beidaihe's Bar Park, but it was just as well. All-in-all I was charmed by beidaihe. There were wild flowers planted along the sides of the road, and it had a seaside town feel to it. Even the neon light-up dolphins reminded me a little of Florida at Christmastime.
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| V did a lot of this during our trip & I'm eager to see how his photos turn out! |
Our group was really the perfect blend. R's friend V is in China for his first time ever and there's really something special about someone experiencing this country for the first time. Coming off of 6 years in West Africa, V marvels at how clean China is. His wonder and perspective are infectious.
A is all enthusiasm. He's had extensive experience in Asia and loves to delve into uncharted territory. He was also our fearless driver throughout the weekend- driving the panda much further off the beaten track than we can guess it's ever been before.
R navigated, not an easy task, and provided us with fresh french press coffee each morning. I contributed my playlist, a batch of honey bars & chocolate chip cookies that got us through some of the longer stretches on the road.
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| so fun to have good friends on the road with you |
The next morning after coffee and a strategy meeting we set out in search of some Great Wall and breakfast dumplings. We found both, but you'll have to wait for my next post to read the details and see the pictures!
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| baozi breakfast in a little hole in the wall under the railroad tracks |
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