9 mountains - 24.5.11 (Day 7 - Stop-over at Taiyuan)

At Taiyuan Yingze park!

At 4:10am, I was already awaken by the train attendant! I took another 10 more minutes to get out of my dreamland. At 4:50am, I was back to Taiyuan again!
My next destination was Hua Shan and my train was at 11:41pm. Today was a relaxing day to meet one and only one purpose, that was to do my laundry!! I supposed I should be able to complete my task in 18hours!!

Craved for a McD breakfast but couldn't find any nearby. So, I burnt some time to check my emails at an Internet cafe. An hour half later, I went to KFC for breakfast instead. They had youtiao (Chinese donut) too!!

Sword playing at Taiyuan Yingze park.

White tulip at Taiyuan Yingze park!

After that, I was a little lost and didn't know where to start. I asked the guy sitting next to me and he pointed along the main road on the right. I doubted he knew too. But I followed him and reached a junction. Saw a few traffic officers and they immediately pointed me to one laundry shop just opposite the road!! Since it was still very early in the morning, the shop had not opened yet. I decided to take a stroll to the Yingze park. Along the way, I saw many nice local food, and bought a big youtiao. Heard many shops listening to songs from the famous Hong Kong band in the 90's, Beyond. Saw a wedding car with flowers interestingly decorated all over it!

There were orange tulips as well!

About 15minutes later, I reached the huge park. It was amazing that so many activities could be going on there. I saw a lot of locals playing the Chinese shuttle balancing game! Even grandmums too!! And they were all really good! I was amused by their back-heel, back-feet somersault, side kick and many other stunts. I had not enjoyed watching this game so much until now!! There were also many dance groups. Hot pop, Traditional Chinese and even slow ballet! There were singing classes, dragon boat rowing, Taichi, Kungfu, fan dancing, sword fighting, flute playing, chess, Chinese spins, lawn ball, harmonica, everything!!

Reminded me of Stephen Chow!

A Stephen Chow kungfu's movie look alike sweet (po ban tong) caught my eyes! I bought it just to snap a picture and then offered it to a little girl and her brother after that. She was so shy to accept but still managed to say thank you.

I strolled around the park, passing two lakes and an amusement park!!

Ballet dancers!

I was backed to the laundry at 10:40am. The fee was rather shocking to me at rmb100 for 6 t-shirts, 5 boxers and a short!! It was rmb66 initially but the owner said he could not get them dried by tomorrow!! My foot, I thought! At his mercy, I asked if there were other options. He said he could do it using the high speed dryer with the extra charges. They didnt even except my handkerchieves and socks. I should had wash my own underwear next time!!

Precious moment!

After handing over the clothes, I started to look for a shopping centre. Asked around and came to one but was nothing close to what I thought of. There wasn't any outlet where I could sip a cup of coffee or even better indulged with a wifi access! Later, I came to a big open area, called Wuyi Square where I saw many family and grandpa were bringing their children and grandchildren to feed the pigeons. I sat there for almost half an hour checking out the kids enjoying themselves! Think that was the longest time I could stayed put myself in one place, except for meals and sleep, of course.

I like my milk!

Pigeon's hole!!!

Around 12, I went for another junk meal at McD. After my meal, I realized I had not book any hotel yet. I called up a booking line but they did not have any hotels at the peak of Hua Shan linked to them. So, I went to the Internet cafe again. Made a booking which I didn't know if it went through! After that, I managed to get the right direction and came to the city main shopping streets. But still, I could not find my coffee!! Many of the shops were repeated every 50m away!! I walked and window shopped around until the end of the streets and realized I was back to the park!! Exactly where I wanted to go to take a rest at the tenting area. Think I managed to nap for 30minutes, before I was chased away by the staff for stepping on the grass!! I explained that was a tenting area!! He told me that I would kill the grass if I sat on it, but I would not with a tent in between!!

Spirit of co-operation!

I returned back to the laundry shop to collect my clothes. I was impressed that my t-shirts were very professionally sealed in separate cover sheets! At least you knew where the charges went to now!!

Underground market!

I stopped at a snack stall just next door to settle with a hot coffee and some light meal. After that, I was deciding if I should go for a massage in order to have a shower and then followed by Internet cafe; or should I just checked in to a hotel for 4 hours just like before. I went to the massage parlor I passed by previously but it didn't looked too pleasant! I ended up in the hotel at 7pm. Had my shower and washed my socks. Unfortunately, they couldn't dry on time. Then I catched Sudirman cup on TV until 9:30pm when my phone was fully charged. Lin Dan almost lost the first set to a Japanese veteran, Sasaki! Then, I walked out to look for dinner. Wanted to eat in at the hotel but the restaurant seemed to have some function. So, I walked to one end of the street but found nothing. Walked back to another small road and saw the barbecue sticks on the street. Decided to take that and went back to the hotel happily after having a rmb18 meal! Lin Dan had already won but the 2nd game was pretty close too. I just relaxed until 11 when the hotel staff called. Checked out and headed to the train station. Everyone was already at the platform!! I quickly went down to my coach and settled down at my berth. I managed to get a lower 4-berth coach for the night! After the routine ticket check, the lights were off and within 2minutes or less, I already heard surround sounds from my top and left "speakers"! But, luckily I was too tired to be disturbed.