More on Guiyang

It was probably obvious to you that I did not enjoy Guiyang City in the province of Guizhou.  However, there were a couple of high points I want to talk about.  On our third day of having Arwyn, our guide Aggie took us to Qian, a 600 year old village outside of Guiyang.  Though this is what many of us think of when we think of China - and these areas do still exist - they are being lost or rather drowned out with the progression of a much more modern society. 

I applaud China, though as they are making efforts to preserve these areas for future generations.  Qian is a very beautiful village that is a living village.  Not like Williamsburg where people pretend to be a living village.  Qian is a real village where people live how they have for the last 600 years, including farming in the traditional ways (okay, all except some of the folks drive new Audis).  We did some shopping in Qian and had a wonderful visit in the local tea shop, which was enchanting.  I am including some photos in this post of our time in Qian.

If you look behind us in the photo of the 4 of us, you can see the tiered gardens where the locals grow their food.  And, the photo that looks like a temple, with the incense, is a temple.  It is a Taoist temple where I was honored to be able to make an offering and ask for blessing on our family.  I was so grateful to be able to honor the Taoist tradition in this way for us and for Arwyn and to offer our thanks for the gift we have received.

We also visited a Buddist temple in Guiyang (see next post).  The Taoist and Buddhist temples were probably my favorite parts of the trip! I wish we could have skipped the Great Wall and other touristy things to see all of the temples in China.