10/9

The second half of my vacation adventure involved getting out of the big city (finally) and heading to something more "genuinely Chinese" (which sounds corny even as I type it).  The 8 of us hopped on another bus to check out a famous type of building called a "tulou" that the minority Hakka culture have lived in for hundreds of years.  The were originally created in response to marauding barbarians in the area as a way to stay safe from attack.  After an early morning bus ride, we got to our little village and were almost immediately offered a room in one of the buildings for the night.  Accommodations were basic, but how many chances do you have to stay in a place like this?  So, we dropped off our bags and headed out to explore!  A bit of haggling and  van ride later, we showed up at two of the more famous tulous in the area.  I managed to grab an out of the way spot with a beautiful view at one, and sat alone for a while writing about the trip and trying to talk to a little girl who I'm pretty sure didn't speak any Mandarin (or maybe just didn't understand my pathetic attempts at Mandarin?) that was playing badminton with her family when she wasn't watching me.  The next day saw a few hours of free time before our bus was to go back to Xiamen, and what better way to kill time than random exploration?!  My boy Fred and I headed off down the road.  At some point we rounded a corner and a beautiful terraced field of grain spread out before us between two hills, with an abandonded looking building situated right in the middle.  Always the adventurous types, we realized that it was pretty necessary that we wind our way towards.  Managing a delicate balancing act on earthen walls between the terraced rows, we made our way towards the small Buddhist shrine at the heart of the field.  Halfway there, a commotion.  Our friends we walking along the highway we had just left, and noticed our figures in the field below.  We gestured that they should follow, and soon our whole crew was chilling out at our shrine in the middle of a grain patch.  It was a very chill experience, and a nice relief from the "always on the go" mentality that so often pervades travel experiences. 

So much of the rest of the trip is just random bus rides, train rides, meals, and sleep; but the little village in Yongding is, I think, the part that sticks out because it offered my first glance of rural "out of the way" China.  It's one of the few places I've been so far the we were basically the only Westerners (a couple showed up as we were leaving.... but we'll not count them), and as an aside offered a chance to improve my language skills a bit!  Hooray for holidays!