Saturday, August 5, 2017

7/28 - Guiyang Free Time



No real plan for the day.  We slept in and enjoyed a lazy morning.  Kyle wasn’t feeling up to eating and Megan only wanted ramen, so they skipped breakfast.  Late morning we decided to try to find the Guizhou Provincial Museum.  We visited back in 2009 and it was a great museum with wonderful handmade products from the local minority tribes.  Our guide wrote out the name for us so we could show the taxi driver.  We double checked with the hotel front desk and they said that location was no longer there and the museum had moved about 30 minutes away (which could mean the other side of town but due to the crazy traffic takes 30 minutes).  I checked online and according to TripAdvisor, they were in the original location and open.  So, we set off to find it. 

The taxi driver seems to know where we desire to go and yet when he stops it looks nothing like the location we had been before.  We get out and pay him not really knowing where we are.  It appears we’re at the Guiyang Public Library.  Well maybe this is the back entrance?  After walking around we realize, no it’s not.  We have a snack and try to get our bearings.  Let’s just google it… oh wait, google doesn’t work.  Ok… let’s walk and see if it’s down the road.  We end up texting our guide who says we’re close and need to head west.  Great, now which way is west.  After walking in the direction we thought was correct according the map our guide texted, we still found nothing.  We ended up walking into what we believe was part of the provincial government grounds as there were armed guards and police all around.  Back to square one.  We find a HagenDaas ice cream store and take a rest.  That turned out to be an experience too.  One of the young girls did her best to understand us and reply in English.  We get our ice cream and Kyle was going to pay with CC however, they couldn’t get their machine to work and we were charged three times.  He paid with cash and they work to cancel the three transactions and apologize profusely.  So, we’ll see how much the ice cream actually costs.

As we’re sitting in HagenDaas, I look across the street and what to we see? Yup, the Provincial Museum building.  Except, it’s completely under construction.  So, we ask the young girl and she really has no idea.  She asks another girl and she points back in the direction we came from.  It seems this museum is for tourists and the locals don’t really know much about it.  Well, we saw the building but guess we should have listened to the hotel staff who told us it had moved. 

Time to hail a taxi and head back to our hotel.  Enough adventure for today (Megan has had a really hard day today too.)  Several taxis stop but none want to take us back to the hotel so we walk for several blocks.  It starts to sprinkle then pouring rain.  We duck into a hotel to assess what our options are and the concierge asks if he can help us.  Yes, we need a taxi to get back to our hotel.  No problem, he goes out in the rain and lickety-split has a taxi for us.  Thank you Lord!  The taxi costs more than it should but hey, we’re back to our hotel safely.  After a bit of rest Megan is hungry and wants some ramen again so we walk down to the neighborhood 7-11.  Today we needed some ice cream to go with our ramen and Fanta orange pop.  Although we weren’t successful in buying any local handmade items, we did get a good story and some new experiences.  Time to pack up as tomorrow we head onto Loudi, Hunan. 

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