A Tour of XiXinan

After a good night's sleep and an elaborate Chinese breakfast it was time to check out Xixinan. I had already taken a morning stroll down the narrow street and soaked in the atmosphere of this Picturesque old village.

 
First we walked over to see Ying and Wade's house, then we stopped by their neighbors and I was showed around their beautifully restored old home, and saw where they were building another home in the old style, but with modern amenities. I learned that the Chinese love to show of their homes to visitors. If they have their front door open it means you are welcome to walk in and admire their home!
 

            



Because the streets of the old village of Xixinan are so narrow there are no cars on the street, and the mopeds are almost all electric, so they are extremely quiet. With all the hustle and bustle of Modern Chinese cities it is a wonderful experience being in the quiet surroundings of this old village. Something that city folks have discovered, and it is beginning to get popular to buy and remodel the old homes in the traditional style for weekend get-aways and second homes.

 Ying showed my the huge classroom of the Whangshan Academy, as well as her studio and gallery space, which is getting close to completion, before she had to get to work on a project she needed to finish. So her husband Wade and I was accompanied by the daughter of their neighbors to give us a tour and a little background about the village. She has just returned from studying at university in San Francisco, and spoke fluent English.

 On our tour we went into another private home owned by a former Chinese business man, who now spends his days doing beautiful calligraphy work. He had an amazing home which was still being renovated. He was very kind and insisted I try my hand at calligraphy in the traditional Chinese way, using hand-ground ink and a sumi brush. It was fun to try copying the beautiful Chinese signs. I understand that each sign represent a syllable. Absolutely fascinating!

 On our way through the rest of the house we saw a beautiful, cozy room where the table was heated by a wood stove under the table top, which consisted of heavy wood and a center made of thick tiles. The winter gets cold and damp in XiXinan, so this was a ingenious invention.

                      

      

Beijing to Xixinan

After a fabulous morning buffet at the hotel in Beijing I met up with Ying and Wade and we walked to the train station where we took the subway about 10 stops to catch the train to go to Huangshan.

The subway and train system is really An efficient way to get around. They are clean and on time, and pretty easy to use, even if you don't speak Chinese.
The train to Huangshan took about 5 hours, mostly at high speed - on the monitor it said we were going 307 kilometers per hour.

We were picked up by a car from the hotel Villa Lotus, where I'm staying while in the village of Xixinan. Ying arranged for us to be dropped off outside the village, so we could walk in the scenic way along the river. Our suitcases were unloaded onto a little scooter van, since the old part of the village is inaccessible by car - the streets are too narrow.

It was a beautiful walk and when we arrived at Villa Lotus we were warmly greeted by the staff. It's a beautiful place, and my room is exquisite. Minimalistic decor, but very tastefully done, and the bed is so comfortable! I was espescially impressed, because I had read that beds in China generally are extremely hard compared to Western standards.

My hotel bed in Beijing was pretty hard, but I was so tired it didn't matter! The food at Villa Lotus is amazing! Freshly prepared from local ingredients and they serve about 6 our 7 dishes for each meal.

 

Welcome to Beijing

I was pleasantly surprised how relatively fast time went on the plane ride to Beijing from Reno. When we landed in Beijing in the afternoon the deplaning went very smooth, and i just followed the crowd to get through passport control.

The line for "foreigners" was very long, but it moved along quickly. The female customs officer was nice, and soon I was through, and kept following the signs to baggage claim. It turned out we had to ride a train for one stop to get to the main terminal where baggage claims was located. All signs were in both Chinese and English, and easy to follow. I located my suitcase as soon as I found the conveyer belt, and I walked through the customs area and saw Ying's familiar smiling face as soon as I was outside the customs area.

We had a lot of traffic going from the airport in to Beijing, but after a good hour we got to my hotel for the night. After checking in we walked to the nearest train station to purchase our tickets for the next day's train ride to Huangshan. On the way back we stopped at a small restaurant for some dinner. From there I walked back to my hotel, and headed straight to bed.

          

   

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