Pingyao

The old city of Pingyao is a well preserved walled city that is between Xian and Beijing and therefore gets a lot of Chinese visitors. We caught an overnight train to get there and spent 1 night in town, giving us 2 days in the area.

About an hour away is the famous 'Wang' residence that has been the set of many Chinese films. We shared a car with 4 others and made our way out there, only to find that they were in the process of filming some soap opera. Exploring the both residences (1 a father and 1 his son's), that are more like little villages, was good fun and we were amazed that we spent about 3 hours at the place. Just before leaving I was buying a drink at 1 of the food stalls outside when all of a sudden I felt a bit dizzy. I was rocking back and forward and quickly looked for somewhere to sit but realised that everyone else was also rocking. It lasted about 30 seconds and we later found out that there had been a massive earthquake miles away in the Sichuan Province. The epicentre was a town called Wenchuan, a place that we had driven through twice about 2 weeks before.