Under Construction 11/11/19
Quite a mouth full for a title. The woman who runs this Inn introduces herself as Wendy. The area she lives in is called Huizhou Ancient City. Wendy was very gracious, spent lots of time talking to me and was the perfect example of my Plan B China itinerary where I stay with Inn keepers who speak english and they guide me in activities. She even picked me up at the Shexignbei Train station in a Zip car type rental. She did not need to be holding a TOM sign, she had seen the Earnest Hemingway visage and I was the only westerner who got off the train!
Why are there 4 almost identical pictures of Wendy? Before I took these, she insistend on taking four of me. I’ll spare you the other three:
These are all taken in the main “lobby” of the Inn. Wendy has a Man Friday, a loyal assistant who runs things. He is introduced as Little Fish:
With one of two house cats. Little Fish uses his phone translator to communicate as he does not have confidence in his English. He is a reasonable bike mechanic. Wendy had 2 bikes. She advised the first one due to its newness but a quick trial ride outside revealed that the front derailer was not functioning. I tried the second, Little Fish worked on it and it cared me on two wonderful day rides. You will see lots of it in bike ride stories!
Wendy has a daughter who has just started university in China. As a graduation present from High School, Wendy offered to take her daughter anywhere and in the summer of 2019? I think the daughter choose England. Wendy and her daughter spent a couple of weeks touring.
I realize I do not have a good still picture of the front of the Inn but here is a video of me walking down the street. I am coming back from breakfast, the street full of shops for Chinese tourists is just waking up and the video ends at the gates to the Inn:
September Inn is in a pedestrian only shopping area and as you can see the Inn itself is on a street with restored buildings. Here are a couple more shots of the neighboring area:
Some old structures have been placed in the pedestrian mall, surrounded by modern stores.
I was up early after the first night at Wendy’s and found the door locked! I could not find the key to let myself out. The cats would not tell me where it was! I went back to my room and read, finally hear noises and Little Fish released me and showed me where the key was hidden and I saw this sign!
Wendy had mentioned that a flim crew from China TV was staying at the Inn and she would be going out on location with them tomorrow. She always refereed to the man in charge as the director. And asked it I was willing to be filmed. I of course said yes. I have no pictures of the actual event but here is the film crew siting around the lobby.
Wendy and the director decided that the topic would be Wendy showing me the bikes she had. So, I just ignored the crew and Wendy introduced the bikes, I tried them out, selected one and was ready to go out on my first ride. That was the end of the filming. I hope they got what they wanted.
Below is another guest standing at Wendy’s table in the lobby:
On my first afternoon in town, I had noticed the buses and taken a ride to the next town for dinner. Of course I had no way of knowing if the bus I was on would get me to the place I was going. As usual my rubric was to have my goal clearly identified on my cellphone map. Map.me is the operational England one in China and then just jump off the bus when it turns off course. The down side is that bus stops are often fairly widely spread out so this “jump off the bus” sometimes involves a 10 minute walk back to the route to wait for another bus that is going in the correct direction.
One morning Wendy suggested I visit the local market. I had a little trouble finding it as it was a couple blocks away from the Inn and outside the Ancient City walls but it was certainly worth the trip. Just a couple of pictures but I think you will get the idea!
These guys are not going home to be pets!
So what was your room like?
Above is the special feature that everyone jokes about that is common to all hotel rooms in China: a clear glass window looking from the bedroom into the shower stall? So the husband can enjoy his wife’s appearance? So he can be sure she is alone? Someone must know.
As you can see in all my China My Room pictures, I ask for one that looks lived in (:-). Some day I will remember to take the pictures before I disgorge the contents of my suitcase and pack all over the space.
When we were first walking from the car to the Inn, Wendy pointed out a place for me to have breakfast. I went all three mornings. Had something different each time. Loved it. I ordered by pointing.
There is a very old dam down river from the Ancient City. Yuliang Ancient Dam. I can’t get a real date on it but you can see that is was build a long time ago.
The tour boats are gathered at the top.
Note the interlocking stones that hold the water back.
No trip is complete without a quest. As you can imagine, in a land where I do not speak the language, I had many memorable ones. Ed at Skywell had introduced me to rice wine. I asked Wendy if her bar had any and Little Fish served me what she had. My last afternoon in town, I set off with her instructions to buy more. Wendy’s strong point is probably not directions. She certainly got me to the right area, down by the dam, but then her key clue was “under the arch”.
I enjoyed getting to see the dam and the scenic spots of the old town along the water. Corn Drying:
Up the raod:
Wait, an arch?
Success!
I don’t have any pictures of the 30 minutes of miscommunication that followed. God knows what was going wrong but from my point of view the seller could not come up with a price. I finally ended up just making piles of coins and giving them to him until he finally said stop. Anyway, I came home with 2 bottles. Drank one that night but then lost the other the next morning to the xray machine people at the train station! Flexibility is the partner of travel!