Qingyan Ancient Town

Hi everyone!

So this Saturday was so fun! The four of us went to Qingyan Ancient Town which is.. well an ancient town. It is a ways out from the city, along the countryside. It is a tourist destination, but most of the vendors are local ethnic minority groups selling hand-made things. Guiyang is home to many of these ethnic minority groups, the biggest being the Miao people. We plan on visiting other minority villages that are scattered around Guiyang because we hear it is really cool to see and experience their unique culture.

Anyway, we had to take 2 buses for a total of about 3 hours to get to the ancient town. We got off a couple stops too late for the second bus but luckily we were able to walk back to the right station! But the place that we did get off was pretty cool! There was this little lake full of lily pads and we walked down a little street market. Then we walked to the right stop and took that bus all the way to Qingyan.

It didn't look like much right when we got there because it is sort of in the middle of nowhere. It was fun to get out of the city though and see some Chinese countryside! The weather was cloudy and perfect too! As we kept walking through we saw a ton of shops full of awesome hand-made crafts! The first (of many) souvenirs that I bought was a little hand-made/ hand-painted doll. It's so detailed! We spent most of our time exploring these shops and stocking up on souvenirs / Christmas presents ;) And because of that, I won't tell you everything that I got, it's gotta be a surprise!

Looks like a statue right? Nope, real dude. He kept scaring people!

Creepy masked performers!

This guy was doing these carvings by hand! They were gorgeous! (Yes, I bought one)

Hand painted shoes. I think they were going for "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas" but missed the mark... Haha Christmars...

We also got to admire some of the ancient architecture. There was this really cool look-out spot that looked out over some fields with the mountains in the background. So beautiful! And because it is a tourist spot, we got asked to have our picture taken many times... oh, the life of celebrities! ;) We also saw an American family walking around but we didn't really talk to them, just said hello.

There was a little band playing in that balcony

Everyone loves taking pics with the blonde one ;)

 Before we left, we all got kissing fish pedicures! These fish are also known as doctor fish or nibble fish, and they basically eat off the dead skin and bacteria on our feet. It was so hard to put your feet in though because it tickles! They just start going crazy as soon as you put your feet in. Eventually we all got over the weirdness of it and were able to keep our feet in for 30 minutes. The worst was when they tried to get between your toes, so weird! I'd say our feet ended up quite exfoliated! And we decided there is something wrong with Evan's feet because like 5 of the fish in his tank died.... oops. Haha it was such a fun experience!

We both finally got both feet all the way in!

What the heck are we doing?

We were all so exhausted on the the bus ride home! When we got back we decided to get dinner at a restaurant near mine and Lindsay's apartments. It was really interesting trying to order when the menu is all in Chinese and there are no pictures... but we managed to get some rice, yummy wonton soup and some beef and onion dish which was pretty good! The people there were so nice and helpful! The owner speaks some English and so does his wife so they talked to us for awhile. He got to know the China Horizons teachers from last Fall semester really well and talked about them a little bit. He taught us how to say the name of all our food in Chinese. He also tried to learn our names which was funny because he could say all of ours except Evans. I learned his name but now I can't remember what it is... Anyway, it was a lot of fun, we all talked and laughed together!

Today, Sunday, we had to teach :( My classes went okay though! After dinner tonight, Lindsay and I are going to watch the Women's broadcast and Elder Holland's BYU-I devotional since we missed church this morning.

Just 2 more days of school until our 7 day break!! Yay!