Day trip to Chuandixia

Curtis and I learned a very important lesson over the weekend:
When in China, don't even try to do anything during a Chinese holiday. This is because no matter what the holiday is, you essentially have 1.3 billion people trying to be somewhere other than wherever they are at the moment.

Naturally, mayhem ensues.

This past weekend was the nationally celebrated Qingming Festival, a.k.a. Tomb Sweeping Day in China. Since this was not noted in the Office Max calendar I purchased in Kansas City before we left, I only found this out when Curtis came home from work on Friday and told me one of his co-workers mentioned it in passing. "It has something to do with people showing respect to their ancestors... I think they go and tend to grave sites or something like that."

This was great news! After all, we had a big weekend planned of going to Ikea to get more essentials for our apartment, and we had scheduled our first day trip to a nearby village. Now we would obviously have everything to ourselves because the 25-35 million people with whom we share this city would all be dusting tombstones!

Isn't it so amazing when your new country conspires to make your weekend even better than you had planned???

On Saturday we learned that apparently another way of showing respect to one's ancestors is by having a shopping day at Ikea. All of Beijing was at Ikea when we got there. We had to literally push and shove our way through a sea of people in order to get our mixing bowls, coasters, and Swedish meatballs. Thank gawd they also have wine.

After such a stressful shopping trip we could not wait to get out of the city center for our day trip to the village of Chuandixia. We woke up at the very crack of dawn on Sunday with big smiles and lots of cheerfulness. Let me tell you that nothing can wipe a smile off of my face quicker than a packed subway car at 7am on a Sunday. I was squished in on all sides by people who smelled like their last meal had been garlic soaked in garlic. No bueno.

Thankfully, this longish story has a mostly happy ending.

I will fast forward (through the horrifically horrifying traffic we endured) to say that Chuandixia is a charming, old-timey little village nestled in the mountains with stone-paved streets, steep and narrow stairways, and courtyard homes. It was founded during the Ming Dynasty (i.e. a really long time ago) by the Han family, and is currently home-sweet-home to about 93 full-time residents. Curtis and I met some really nice people, did some hiking, breathed some fresh air, and ate a lovely meal.

Here are the pictures to prove that Tomb Sweeping Day did not completely ruin our weekend:

Gotta love the warning sign. Although we cherish our lives, we did end up choosing to climb some of the wild mountains that surround this village. And we even lived to tell of it!

We enjoyed a lunch of locally-grown food before spending a few hours exploring and hiking. There are a bunch of tiny temples around town and that is me standing awkwardly in front of one.

Cool details everywhere! The top right photo is the inside of what was once home to the wealthiest person in the village. The bottom-right photo is some rooftop weeds that were being kind of show-offy with their prettiness.

 This is us on our climb up the wild mountains to get a better look at the village. The guy with the broken ankle did great on his first post-surgery hike!

 These were some of the friendly people we day-tripped with. Curtis could not resist having a post-hike street food snack. The smell of roasting corn and sweet potatoes was amazing!

I would like to add that we did pass by several cemeteries on the road to and from Chuandixia and they were all pretty much empty. Clearly everyone in China needs to get on Wikipedia (like I did!) to find out where they're supposed to be on Tomb Sweeping Day.