I’m headed north of Wenzhou to the town of Taizhou, it’s a smaller city than Wenzhou but still has the city life. With my principle Van, we start at the bus station, he’s headed home for the first time in about 2 weeks. His wife and 2 month old son live in Taizhou, while he works in Wenzhou.
The bus station – carry-on items include luggage of all kinds including the normal backpacks/suitcases as well as the occasional rabbit and chicken, which will also be stored under the bus in a special compartment…they’re cages are strapped down so that they don’t move around. But what a scary experience for the animals…poor rabbit and chicken! And after everything is strapped down we head out of the city. It should only be about a 2 hour drive from Wenzhou to Taizhou, but then we hit traffic and get diverted off of the highway onto side streets and into other towns…and the 2 hour drive turns into 4 hours. Of course, who drank the large coffee before she left…yep me! So I had to pee at the 2 hour mark, but alas, the bus didn’t have a bathroom…eyeyeyeee! But I digress, the scenery was beautiful. We passed a lot of smaller towns along the way, as well as some distressed houses that were pretty old and falling down, some temples on the side of the mountains, a chicken farm or two, overall a nice drive. Once we got into the smaller towns we were driving on rock roads, not pavement, it was a little bumpy.
Then we arrived in a small town, not sure the name of it but it wasn’t very big and we were there for a while because of all the traffic being rerouted through. This town was very amusing to me. I found a small gang of City Dogs and their hangout spot, I tracked them for a while, they fought like any gang and they also crossed the street and argued over who was going to get the best scraps of meat. There was also a man riding a tricycle, and I know riding a bike in China is like eating rice…it’s everywhere, but this little old man was taking his time, not in a hurry at all and very focused on getting where he was going. I may start a new photo page with ‘Faces of China’ and he’s going to be my first face. Then there were the more disturbing and noteworthy trucks full of things…the truck that carries everything from the tricycle for a child, some cardboard boxes, a fan and a bunch of other things, then the food truck, which carried the soup of the day for the local street shop. They make the soup, put it into buckets and transport it to the local street food area, reheat the soup and sell it…however, if you look, it’s not covered…yum, yum. No wonder my stomachs messed up half of the time! Haha
The city of Taizhou is quite nice, its scenery and landscaping is very different with that of Wenzhou. Wenzhou is crowded and we don’t have enough parks to walk around and just enjoy unless you drive for a while to get out of the city. Van and his family were very hospitable, they cooked many different foods for me to try, like jellyfish, a local fish from the lake, fried krill, some veggies, stomach of a pig with a sweeter sauce (not my favorite a little to squishy), and some coconut flavored beverage. I enjoyed feeding the white pigeons, people watching, going to the temple near the city center and walking around in general. The noise level was also very noticeably different, it was much quieter and I could hear the birds sing. Overall, the visit was nice.
The bus station – carry-on items include luggage of all kinds including the normal backpacks/suitcases as well as the occasional rabbit and chicken, which will also be stored under the bus in a special compartment…they’re cages are strapped down so that they don’t move around. But what a scary experience for the animals…poor rabbit and chicken! And after everything is strapped down we head out of the city. It should only be about a 2 hour drive from Wenzhou to Taizhou, but then we hit traffic and get diverted off of the highway onto side streets and into other towns…and the 2 hour drive turns into 4 hours. Of course, who drank the large coffee before she left…yep me! So I had to pee at the 2 hour mark, but alas, the bus didn’t have a bathroom…eyeyeyeee! But I digress, the scenery was beautiful. We passed a lot of smaller towns along the way, as well as some distressed houses that were pretty old and falling down, some temples on the side of the mountains, a chicken farm or two, overall a nice drive. Once we got into the smaller towns we were driving on rock roads, not pavement, it was a little bumpy.
Then we arrived in a small town, not sure the name of it but it wasn’t very big and we were there for a while because of all the traffic being rerouted through. This town was very amusing to me. I found a small gang of City Dogs and their hangout spot, I tracked them for a while, they fought like any gang and they also crossed the street and argued over who was going to get the best scraps of meat. There was also a man riding a tricycle, and I know riding a bike in China is like eating rice…it’s everywhere, but this little old man was taking his time, not in a hurry at all and very focused on getting where he was going. I may start a new photo page with ‘Faces of China’ and he’s going to be my first face. Then there were the more disturbing and noteworthy trucks full of things…the truck that carries everything from the tricycle for a child, some cardboard boxes, a fan and a bunch of other things, then the food truck, which carried the soup of the day for the local street shop. They make the soup, put it into buckets and transport it to the local street food area, reheat the soup and sell it…however, if you look, it’s not covered…yum, yum. No wonder my stomachs messed up half of the time! Haha
The city of Taizhou is quite nice, its scenery and landscaping is very different with that of Wenzhou. Wenzhou is crowded and we don’t have enough parks to walk around and just enjoy unless you drive for a while to get out of the city. Van and his family were very hospitable, they cooked many different foods for me to try, like jellyfish, a local fish from the lake, fried krill, some veggies, stomach of a pig with a sweeter sauce (not my favorite a little to squishy), and some coconut flavored beverage. I enjoyed feeding the white pigeons, people watching, going to the temple near the city center and walking around in general. The noise level was also very noticeably different, it was much quieter and I could hear the birds sing. Overall, the visit was nice.