We may not have the chance to see the Great Wall, but we will visit one of China’s most delightful attractions — the magnificent World Heritage-listed City Pingyao. Pingyao is about 120 km south of Taiyuan. The city is surrounded by one of China’s few intact Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) city walls. Pingyao’s streets are lined with a wealth of traditional Chinese buildings, including courtyard houses, temples, and more than 3000 historic shops. It used to be China’s banking centre, where the first bank in China was founded. The town’s affluent days ceased when Qing Dynasty defaulted on loans, leaving the banks empty. Its character, however, has been preserved. Click for photos of Pingyao: http://search.pbase.com/search?q=pingyao&b=Search+Photos&c=sp http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/pingyao/
Yu Feng
Do you think we could maybe use one of our free sundays to see some of those things? Also, how much shopping time will we have?
At this stage anything is possible but nothing can be guaranteed. The problem is Taiyuan is about 500 km away from Beijing. It is impossible to do the trip in just one day. As a matter of fact, we will fly from Beijing to Tainyuan after we land in Beijing. Even if we can do it in, say two or three days, are you happy to pay the expenses yourself?
I know I am, but if not everyone wants to pay for it, it might be wierd leaving the others behind. Visiting the great wall tends to ring synonymous with visiting China though, so most people will probably have assumed they would get to go there at some point.
On the other hand, it’s nice to see you can get a conservative spirit from parts of China, so I’m looking forward to visiting Pingyao.
I would be happy to, how much does the great wall cost? I didn’t think it would cost that much.
But either way, its guna be pretty amazing. So excited!
I would love to go to Beijing for a few days, and think its a bit impossible to imagine going to China without seeing the Great Wall, Tiananmen, Forbidden City etc!! I could try to pay for some of it, but after fundraising for well over $2000 for plane tickets, its quite hard to suddenly come up with more $$ for extra travel expenses. As far as paying for it, it was my family’s understanding that HanBan would pay for ALL of our expenses in China, and one of the learning outcomes of the trip is supposed to be “increasing knowledge of China, INCLUDING BEIJING through travel in China”. Also, in the first letter we got, it specifically said that we were going to be in Beijing and Shanxi. Isn’t HanBan responsible for taking us sightseeing in Beijing??
I know i wont have enough money for more plane tickets to see the great wall
There is a saying in China ,which goes “expecting the worst while working for the best”. What I can tell you now is Dr. Han is working very very hard at the moment negotiating with the officials in Beijing.
Thanks…i know we all appreciate everyone’s hard work!! So excited to see everyone tomorrow night