The head principal of the Jietou region organized a trip for all the Teach for China fellows in our region to visit Ginkgo Village and Volcano Park yesterday (the equivalent American position would be superintendent of a school district). It was nice to get out on the weekend and see other fellows. It was especially nice to chat in English since Katherine's in the US at the moment, so it's been two weeks since I've been able to do that!
The ginkgo trees themselves were very pretty and the town was picturesque.
But it was also swarmed by tourists. The leaves turn yellow at this time of year and the tourists converge on the village. I've never before been in a traffic jam in rural China. There were lots of stands of food, tea, and trinkets to buy, including the following.
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| Roasting pig. |
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| Walnuts at the upper left, ginkgo nuts at the bottom right, and many other mystery foods. |
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| Shell animals. |
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| Particularly appropriate for the hedgehog. |
Many of the tourists bought these ginkgo-leaf crowns:
To avoid the crowds, we walked out of the town and up the hill to a landscape viewing platform, on the way...
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| Baby water buffaloes! |
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| Looking towards town. |
On the way back from the village we stopped at Volcano Park. Many of the hills in the area are dormant volcanoes. This one has just been developed into a park.
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| Too bad...I was planning on excavating...! |
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My principal (on the left) and another education leader
on the way down the volcano. |
Our last stop was a scenic overview of a columnar basalt formation. It's been slightly marred by the housing development that's been built on top, but the rock formation is pretty impressive. Although I'm still somewhat baffled by the Chinese tourist industry, it was quite a nice Saturday.
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