Photos and stories about my expat experience in China, currently in Bejing.
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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Visiting Luoyang

My girlfriend's brother lives in Luoyang, and her parents are there now too to visit. We went to pay them a visit too, and spent the weekend there.

This is a demonstration of Shaolin Kung Fu, because Luoyang is very close to the old Shaolin Temple, where Kung Fu originated. In this park, some foreigners were practicing with a crowd of people around them.

As usual, we were welcomed with a lot of great food and drinks. On Sunday we ate in a Hunan restaurant, and drank nice baijiu (very strong rice wine)

Our visit coincided with the annual flower festival in the city of Luoyang. It meant that tour buses and crowds of people were lining the streets, but also beautiful peony flowers everywhere!

Close up

In the evening we went to a park were, because of the flower festival, they had built a sort of fun fair. There was a lot of lights and music (noise) and many people.

Caramel candy

A local 'fake antique' market in the old town. Nearly everything here is 'fake' - meaning not as old and authentic as the vendor makes it seem. Especially old coins with rust and pottery (with added mud for a more authentic effect) were on sale everywhere. Some things still looked nice, real or fake, and so many people came to buy 'cheap' antiques here.

Birds were also on sale. These poor guys had almost no space to move

Imagine the noise here

and here

The old streets of Luoyang are nice and although I saw some foreigners (three) there were hardly any tourist shops or overpriced 'souvenirs' on sale.



Our group :)

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