Wednesday 24 June 2015

Day 237: Trim and terrific

After a breakfast of this and that in the courtyard, we did a little bit of schoolwork with the girls and then walked out of the old city – through the West Gate - and into the newer part of Pingyao. Suddenly, we were back in the real world, among a vibrant collection of little food stalls, all cooking up lovely fresh dishes from lovely fresh ingredients. We passed a man frying up some noodles and the tasty looking food and his winning smile convinced us to stop and taste his wares. We went around the back of the stall to where there were a number of tables set up under cover (thankfully, as the sun was out and the temperature was hovering somewhere around 30C) , pulled up a stool and were soon wolfing down two plates of lovely noodles – each of which cost the equivalent of a pound.




We then walked up and along the main road, where, on a whim, Kate went into a hairdressing salon and enquired about the cost of a quick trim for the girl. She negotiated the price down to 20 yuan (£2) each, and the girls got a shampoo, cut, blow-dry and curl, and then posed for multiple photos with their hairdressers and most of the other random staff and hangers-on in the salon. Then it was back for another plate of noodles from the same guy, as well as a plate of his equally delicious fried rice, and then back to the room. 









As we walked along the street, we noticed a woman deep frying something in a wok on a cart. We watched her at work – pulling our pieces of dough and deep frying them in hot oil, and also watched her selling some of her wares, piling pieces into a plastic bag and weighing the lot, then working out the price based on the weight. We asked if we could buy some and in our case, she asked for a flat 10 yuan a piece (which we later figured out was about twice what the locals paid – but at 10p a piece, we weren't going to complain).


Later, we walked back into the heart of town to see if we could find somewhere to eat, but were utterly dispirited by what we saw. Back near-ish to our hotel, we found a place called Big Bowl Noodle, which had been recommended in Lonely Planet. A guy was grilling stuff on skewers, so we stopped there (lots of places grill meat on skewers in Pingyao, but they pre-cook them and they look really dry and nasty). Unfortunately, the skewers, when they arrived, were dry and nasty – cooked to within an inch of their life. They then committed one of the unpardonable sins of a Chinese restaurant – they served us four bowls of truly dreadful steamed rice: nasty, gluggy and pretty inedible. The girls will eat steamed rice till the cows come home, but when we left, their bowls were still half full.








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