Walking around Pingyao

3:00pm

01 The hostel kitty

So this morning I walked around town pretty early and saw most of the sites in Pingyao that I hadn't seen yet.  Among them was the first bank of China, the first money escort service, and a Taoist temple.  The temple was pretty nice.  one of the guys, though, by the main altar, did some type of supposed good luck blessing and then (of course) tried to make me give a donation "for the temple."  I immediately told him I wasn't having any of it and went on to see the rest of the temple.    He probably cursed me soon thereafter.  Oh well!

Then I came back and checked out of the hostel, and had one of the girls here call the hostel in Xi'an to reserve a room and have a free pickup arranged from the train station.  I'm guessing I'll stay in Xi'an around 3 days or so.  After that I'm off to Chengdu. 

02Wushu Practice Yard

After Chengdu I'm still not sure where I'm headed.  I have to decide whether to head off towards Tibet, Nepal, and India or to head towards Southwest China and Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, etc).  I'm leaning towards the Nepal and India route right now but who knows.  Only time (and my very indecisive mind) will tell.  If anyone has any preference or recommendations please let me know. 

I just realized I forgot my small towel in my room when I checked out this morning. Oops.  Hopefully I can get it back (I did).

03 An old banker's desk.

04 A beautiful building

05 Closeup of the cart

06 Wooden Totem Pole

07 An old vault

08 Some buddhas

09 Me

10 One of the two wooden carvings

11 Stone Statue

12 Some cool, small dolls

13 Wodden Buddha

14 Taking a snooze