2025-12-17 Yanping

 A Feasting Day

A quiet day spent at Toby's parents' place, with a bit of a walk around Yanping.

We were picked up at 1000 by Chen Ping, Toby's uncle, to be taken to the new estate where his parents have their apartment.  This is a new place since out visit 10 years ago, and is spacious and with a view of the mountains surrounding the town.  Pippa explained that this development was slated to be even more expansive, but the local government re-located from Yanping to another site, with generous packages for the workers, and so this development, and Yanping in general, has marked time, compared to the original potential.

Lunch was a feast of dishes that just kept coming, including the green vegetables that Isaac picked that morning with Nainai at the communal vegetable plot that is part of the apartment complex. It was all delicious, so hard to stop, and so it was a relief of sorts to be dropped off back in town for a walk.

China is different to Australia; instead of youths hanging about underpasses and shopping centres, it is old people in their gangs, lurking in underpasses and on street corners, playing cards, dancing to boom boxes, and here in Yanping competing with loud karaoke machines, crooning love songs (I think China is a more fun place to be old than Western countries - they seem to get out more and enjoy themselves in social gatherings).

We slunk past these groups of people and went up the Nine Peak Mountain, overlooking the junction of two rivers, the Jianxi where it joins the Min River. We walked up an amazing steel boardwalk structure, that provided a wheelchair accessible path to the greenway that girdles the mountain at the second peak level (one level from the lowest peak - the mountain top is a long way up!).  Ten years ago the only way up was via lots of stairs, so this is an improvement.  The stairs are still in place, underneath the spiderweb of this new path.  It was very popular, and we were accompanied by walkers and runners of all ages.  Many would stare at the 'foreigners', being rare in this city I guess, and would be startled when Pippa spoke in Chinese.  She said if there was any comments before she spoke it was something like 'there's a foreigner' made between themselves; they were very friendly and chatty if Pippa responded, asking where we were from, did we like Yanping, Australia is very nice, and similar.

Dinner was a repeat of lunch, but we we had an early night, ready for a 2 night trip to Taining Danxia

Our hotel in Yanping - we have a 16th floor room

View from our room

View from our room

View of Toby's parents apartment complex - they have an 8th floor apartment

Residents notice board

Church in Yanping

Yanping

Playing cards and having haircut at the entrance to an underpass, Yanping

River front walkway with old people sunning themselves

Reflections in the Min River

One of the swimmers out today - we saw a woman having a swim as well, otherwise just men

The junction of the two rivers

No idea what this meant

We saw a flock of these beautiful birds - there were yellow ones in the flock as well

Stairs to the 'third peak'

Penny and Pippa walking along the Greenway

Rack for those who are getting too hot for coats - theft is rare, apparently, so people leave their coats on racks like these, or just anywhere really, and collect them on the way back

Part of the walkway to the 'second peak'

Dancing on the rivrefront walkway - different groups had their own boomboxes, and it was quite a cacophony

Street food area between older apartment blocks, Yanping