Looking For More Things To Do In Jianshui

The next morning, we all met for breakfast. (Recently, we had seemed to be having every meal and doing everything else together. This fact will become relevant in some upcoming posts.) We went to a place where I FINALLY had an authentic Chinese breakfast. Like everywhere else, there are several different types of authentic breakfasts, but what I had wanted for weeks was some steamed dumplings and dough sticks with soy milk. Just in time, too, because this was my last full day in China. The dough sticks were as good as they’ve always been. I think the traditional soaking of them in soy milk is unnecessary (I’m not a big fan of the soy milk), but it was definitely worth trying. And steamed dumplings with pork, well, need I say more?

After breakfast, we all hopped in a van. I mentioned in my last post that a lot of people were interested in going to a local village, but I wasn’t. Instead, a few of us were dropped off at the Shuanglong (Double Dragon) Bridge. It actually is a quite impressive bridge for such a small town. It was originally built during the Qing Dynasty. Unfortunately, I don’t know when the Qing Dynasty took place, so I don’t know exactly how old it was, but it was pretty cool regardless of its age.

Afterwards, we walked about five kilometers back into town. The walk took us through what I started calling Tombstone Alley because we had to walk about two kilometers down a dusty road in which there were various places at which tombstones were being carved. I could see why tombstones were so important on this road because I was almost hit by three cars and five motorcycles. But we survived – for now.

I went back to my room for a cup of coffee and went back out again to see if there was anything else in Jianshui worth seeing. I walked to three of the city’s walls and the only thing I came across was a bar. Bars are important, but not exciting. Later in the walk, I took a turn that looked promising and happened along the local market, which was very much like most other local markets that I had seen in China, with meat (cooked and/or alive), vegetables, herbs and local goods. I walked around for a while and then returned to the hotel.

When I got back to the hotel, the others had just returned from the village. We went to lunch and then I took them to the market so everybody would have something to do in the afternoon. While in the market, I decided to do one last thing in China that I had thought about, but hadn’t done. I bought some chicken feet. I wanted about five, but was given around twenty. I returned to the hotel and ate some of them. They were good. Not very meaty, it was basically like eating chicken skin off of little bones, but the sauce in which they were cooked was excellent.

While back at the hotel, it started to pour. We just hung out and read or played on the computer or ate chicken feet or what have you. The rain subsided and we went out to dinner. Afterwards, we headed to the bar that I had found while I was walking around earlier in the day. After too many beers, we returned to the hotel and our last full day in China came to an end.