C & C globetrotting around the world…

We chose to go to Shijiazhuang on our way to Qingdao since all tickets to Qingdao itself were sold out. The train was actually quite nice (hard seats aka 2^nd class, which is the lowest class, after that comes only standing) and Cecilia had a little girl play in her hair along the way. I guess she was not used to curly hair. Arrived in Shijiazhuang, we were surprised to find out that the hotels we had in our Lonely Planet were not accepting foreigners. Great! We finally found a hotel though and stayed in this city which we had never heard of before for a few days visiting the surrounding area. Initially we thought it was a small town, but it actually has over 3 million inhabitants (which makes it a small city in China). For now. We thought they were building a lot in Beijing (as it turned out half of the subway lines (14 in total) were not yet in our 2009 Lonely Planet) but Shijiazhuang is one big construction site. If we could time travel, we surely would have founded a crane or cement company in China 15 years ago.

We went to the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Mausoleum Park where there is a statue and some articles about the Canadian-born Norman Bethune (a doctor who came here to help during the war against the Japanese), apparently really famous in China.

According to Lonely Planet, there was a cute little village where everything was made of stone and everyone stems from the same family “Yu”. So we decided to go and see something different, not just big smoggy cities. Had the bus ride only been bumpy, it wouldn’t have been a problem. But the landscape was not very nice (smoggy, dusty, stinky) with lots of coal trucks and plants along the way. When we arrived at the village, one of the ladies from the “tourist info center” walked us through the village and unlocked doors for us and showed us English boards, although the translations resembled more Chinglish than actual English. There was a tower that a guy built without mortar and with uneven stones that still stands, which was nice to see and lots of little shrines with various gods and goddesses that were nicely done (some angry, some green, yellow). At least the toilets were interesting… And then the fun bus ride back.

Another lesson learned. Do not always rely on your Lonely Planet.