Vodka Fizz

First impressions of Pingyao are a bunch of wannabe helpful chinese folk who leap on us trying to sort us out with taxis, hostels, tours...we already have a hostel so plump for a battery taxi to take us there. They really take some convincing that you actually have somewhere to stay?!

Pingyao is a small walled city, which in the dark, from the back of a bump golf cart contraption doesnt look too inspiring. We check in to a nice hostel, with our own shower/trickle of water (we are going up in the world) and after a quick nap we go exploring. First stop food and ran into the Australian guy, David, who we had been on the wall with. Small world.

Out on the main street there are stalls on either side of the road selling what can only be described as tat - John, you would have been in heaven ;) We wander round half the city in about an hour and realise that we are going to have to purchase one of the tourist tickets to see all the sights and sounds of Pingyao to fill up the rest of the day - we manage to swing student discount (acknowledgments for the dissertation...forgot to thank them for the student discounts!) We decided that once you'd been in one of the temples/famous folks houses/old finance offices you've pretty much seen them all...similar layout just rooms being used for different stuff. What did keep us amused was the chinese-english signs again...check out the photos for the results.

More food - this time we found the best sweet and sour sauce in the world! And a little wine to make things more interesting! In the next room we seemed to be seranaded by a man hitting a wok with a lot of energy - it was quite annoying. Turns out it was actually a band, with instuments, and an audience!

We ended up stopping in another bar on the way back to the hostel, the local! It would have been rude not to pop in for a drink. And guess what - vodka fizz is on the menu! So while Amy spends about 40p on a huge bottle of beer, I spend about 1.80 pounds on the smallest cocktail the world has ever seen - delicious!

We soon attract the attention of the drunk locals - who give us sunflower seeds as some sort of gift - thanks muchly people! We learnt some sort of drinking game with dice - which I found it particularly easy to cheat at since i couldn't understand the dude's rules! and then they had us up dancing, oh dear. I had to dance with some old chinese man who had less rythmn than the man playing the wok earlier on, and Amy got stuck being passed around about 4 different guys and gals. The chinese version (a man singing) holly valance's kiss kiss is on repeat!

We swap email addresses (so that we can show you the no doubt brilliant photos!) and then leave! The next morning I wouldn't say I was hungover but Amy did knock on the shower door in the morning and ask if I was planning on needing my towel?! Hmmm!