Home Inn (Luoyang Wangcheng Park)

... against a brick wall, these guys actually do. Well, at least a metal bar, which subsequently breaks. It takes about 20 years of training to be able to properly smack your head with the metal bar. Rather moneky men than me, in all honestly, although I think the only part of their routine that I could do would be the standing up, still, part. Otherwise I would be totally inept.
So currently, I am wondering what the weather will do tomorrow. Although the snow has been ...

... to collect us from the station.

So we get to Luoyang and there's this 15 year old standing with a sign with Adele Fleming written on it. He flagged down a taxi for us and rode with us to the 'hostel'. It was down a very dark little road but we weren't at all worried because we'd had plenty of warning. When we got to the apartment (up 7 flights of stairs, some of which were piled with coal!) the place was really nice and our room was very clean ...

... It is believed to be the first Buddhist temple to be built by the Chinese government. It was fascinating to see that religion really is thriving again - although possibly only in a small section of the population. We saw many worshippers going through simple acts of worship - young and old lighting candles and incense sticks. Some grandmothers were teaching toddlers the rituals of worship. It was quite moving ...

... bought a few things from the market at the base village, and then had a delicious lunch at a trout farm.

Back in Beijing, we went to a silk factory where we watched the process of making silk: absolutely fascinating. Naturally, we all bought some silk items - well we ...

The train ride into Zhengzhou wasn't exactly what we had expected. We had asked for the comfy soft seats but seemed to get placed in something half way between the hard seats and the nice soft seats that we walked past. The train was busy and after 5 long hours we arrived at close to midnight. Outside of the train station the large concrete square was hot, humid and filled with people laying about waiting for their trains to arrive.The taxi stand was at the far end of the square ...

... dinner. There were 24 dishes! Like its name, contained lot of soup. The ' water meal' was serviced the King only in the past. The photo was photographed after we finished the meal, as you see, many dishes were not even ate. Although there were many dishes, but lots of it are not tasty at all. It was quite cheap too, 42/each.

... a dictionary. I am relying on the two-page language section of my Lonely Planet travel guide, but while that is sufficient for getting a hotel room or asking directions to the train, it does not allow me to tell my host mother that what she is feeding me is delicious, but I am so stuffed I couldn't possibly eat another bite, or that while I appreciate the Pepsi she insists on serving me, I really don't like the stuff at all. I also wish I could ...

... a toe over for fun and she gave me evils when we got on but we were away and in our comfy seats. However as mentioned we are now minor celebs so everyone was gawping at us. After some miles the passengers opposite struck up a "conversation" which is quite stilted when they only know "hello" and "bye bye". We, however, have been learning a word a day and can count to 99 now and do shopping talk in Mandarin. Again not much use for lazy ...

I didn't do much yesterday except looked around the old city in Luoyang. It was nothing remarkable. In fact, the most memorable thing about Luoyang is that it seemly had the worst pollution on my China trip. Of couse Xi'an gave it a tough battle, but I think Luoyang edged it out by a smelly nose. Quite a distinction for sure! BTW, Carol turned out last night. She stayed in Xi'an another day as she wasn't up for the bus trip on Tuesday. Then ...

... two gardeners mowing the lawns with real 'lawn mowers'.

Unbelievable!

After the temple we re-bussed our roads and headed back into the city. After discussing what to do and where to sleep on the bus on the way back we decided to take my recommendations. Seriously, other people actually listened to me and wanted to do what I suggested! Huh, go figure! We were ...