Moorhouses on the Move: Picturesque Pingyao

We left Beijing on our first domestic Chinese train. The guide book and the concierge both recommended being at the train station at least 1 hour in advance. In Europe this would result in a lot of waiting around, but Chinese trains and stations are a bit different…

Entrance to the station was only for passengers, and we were required to go through a passport check, ticket check, and security screening before finally making our way to the waiting hall for our track. Many passengers were already queued up in some semblance of “lines”….so we joined one. When boarding started, these “lines” started pushing towards the front, where a bottleneck formed because we all had to walk through turnstiles after scanning our tickets. People in one line were trying to move to another line; people were trying to maneuver in front of other people, there were huge suitcases and bags crossing everywhere…it was a bit chaotic.

The train was comfortable and fast (250 km/hour), and about 4 hours later we arrived in Pingyao. Pingyao has a well-preserved ancient walled town with thousands of historic residences. The city was an important merchant town that really thrived when those merchants created the country’s first banks in order to transfer large amounts of silver from one place to another. Our guide book described it as “the China of your dreams”. So we were excited to check it out for a few days. Our hotel was a converted residence within the old city walls, and all the rooms were set off a central courtyard.

Our two rooms had traditional Chinese beds—Colin looks so small, but it's because the bed was really huge.

Evening was really the best time to walk through the ancient city, thanks to the lights and the cooler temperatures, but during the day it was pretty as well.

It’s free to walk around the old city of Pingyao, but to visit the historic buildings and the city wall you must purchase a 3-day ticket. After buying ours, we visited Qingxu Guan, a beautiful Taoist temple.

We also visited the former home of a very rich Pingyao man. The buildings, courtyards, and furnishings were impressive, as was his underground vault. The English description of the son’s room was pretty funny.

We enjoyed a lot of delicious Chinese food—nothing like the Americanized versions of Chinese dishes, which I don't particularly care for. Some of the local specialties included Pingyao beef, mountain noodles (very thick tubular noodles), and northern China staples such as dumplings and steamed buns. We watched a man making noodles on the street.

The boys are getting better every day with chopsticks.

The next day, we set out to walk the Pingyao city wall. Parts of the wall are closed for restoration work, but we walked every section that was open.

The Moorhouse dudes even worked on their own Beijing Bikinis.

The outer side of the southern wall was lined by a beautiful moat and park area.

At the south gate, we saw the enormous old doors into the ancient city and the remnants of track marks from the carts that used to come in and out.

We moved on to visit the old county government complex, where there was a pretty courtyard.

We also visited the temples that high ranking officials would use to pray.

Bob and I both made offerings—with job searches coming up in the not-too-distant future, the more help, the better.

Emmett declared the jail cell to be “roomy!”….until we reminded him that, if he’d been a prisoner, he would have been sharing it with many other people.

We climbed the tower to have a view over one of the main streets in Pingyao. The former homes have largely been turned into guest houses, restaurants, and shops….the stuff inside the shops was not nearly as interesting as the beautifully painted wooden facades of the buildings themselves.

In the Temple of the City God, we saw more beautiful architecture, etchings, and a fantastic Nine Dragon Screen.

An especially interesting part was the representations of what awaits people who go to hell, according to the Taoist tradition. Punishments included sawing people in half, grinding them, and putting them in vats of boiling liquid. Both boys declared they’d rather be good.

The boys also tried archery with the help of a kind Chinese man (and their Daddy).

We stopped off for a snack at a small store where a smiling elderly couple was selling homemade yogurt. We tried all 3 flavors—plain, rose, and red bean. All were delicious and I only have a picture of the store because we scarfed down the yogurts so fast.

We went into the Escort Museum, which detailed the creation of the "armored car service" of ancient China. Because so much silver had to be transported to and from Pingyao (where the first banks where), the escorts were highly trained men who could protect the valuables in transit.

The boys also got to try archery again.

Bob and I both laughed at the English description on this sign. The “moneybags” was mentioned a lot throughout the museum—he was an important guy!

Throughout our time in Pingyao, we had a lot of Chinese people come up to us, excited to take pictures with our boys. We keep telling the boys they have the right to say no, but they are eating up the attention. Colin keeps tell us, "I'm famous in China!"