Executive Summary - Pingyao

• Saw: Confucian and Taoist temples, ancient residences, ancient walls and guard towers with engraved quotes from 'The Art of War', an man that surely was about 900 years old riding a bicycle picking up rubbish, a wedding parade of cars with firecrackers going off in front, some fantastic Chinglish examples since Beijing was disappointingly void of them after being Olympified.

• Did: Managed to get myself from Beijing to Pingyao with a bus transfer and without the assistance of anyone who spoke English, took a rickshaw to transfer bus stations, had 3 near-death experiences doing so, wandered the streets at night just excited to see a different part of China, wandered the streets during the day, started planning and getting *very* excited for my anticipated trip to the T-word.

  And I stayed at a hostel that was spotless, comfortable and only cost US$0.77 a night. No joke!

• Ate/Drank: A delicious roadside gravy-exploding steamed bun stuffed with pork and cabbage, mooncakes, streetfood, 'muesli with fruit and yoghurt' that was more like fruit and yoghurt with ¼ of a teaspoon of crumbled oats, my free wine (refer Beijing exec summary), mountain noodles, chicken with cashew nuts, steamed pork dumplings, bok choy, and miscellaneous street food from a makeshift cafe down an alley that involved a stirfry of chicken parts/green beans/noodles and a spicy vinegar sauce.

• Favourite part about Pingyao: A gorgeous quaint old city that starts to give you a feel for 'the old days'. Yeah, there are souvenir shops crowding the main streets but it was awesome. And did I mention it was $0.77/night?!

• Least favourite part about Pingyao: The Chinese tendency to resolve any traffic obstacle, regardless of how minor, by laying their hand on the horn. I would suggest that from Taiyuan to Pingyao the horn was on more often than it was off!

• Life-altering revelation which has contributed to my search for universal truth: Always, always, always have tissues or wet wipes on hand in China.