Day 87 (1 September): Road to Pingyao

Today we drove from Taiyuan--China's center for coal mining--to the preserved historic town of Pingyao. Along the way we stopped at a number of sites including 1) the Jin Family Ancestral Temple which featured 3000 year old trees growing on its grounds in addition to some impressive lion and warrior sculptures, 2) the Qiao Family Courtyard which was the home 200 years ago of a family that made it rich initally selling Tofu to Mongolians then moving into banking, and 3) the Shuanglin Buddhist Temple, which is one of few Buddhist Temples in China to have survived the Cultural Revolution completely intact, primarily because it isn't near a big city.

Observations:
1) Coal is still big business in China. Around Taiyun its impossible to avoid seeing coal trucks. Maybe this environmental conciousness that the guide in Sichuan was telling us about isn't so accurate.
2) Chinese Wine. That's right made from grapes. We passed a number of vineyards on the way to Pingyao, so watch out, pretty soon everyone might be drinking 'Great Wall' Wine if the quality pans out and people begin importing it elsewhere. Not sure it'll be good, but with farm labor as cheap as it is here, it'll be cheap.
3) Shanxi seems noticably poorer than anywhere else we've been on this trip. Around major tourist sites there are people who are somewhat desperately peddaling cheap goods. Its still nothing like in Inida, however, as they aren't simply begging for money.
4) Government Housing. The nicest buildings going up in Taiyuan were new government apartments according to our guide. They looked nice from what we could see when other apartments around didn't look so great. Doesn't seem like a recipe for making people happy.
5) Most of the road in Shanxi aren't great either and are being patched up here and there rather than being systematically repaved. The major highways even have farm traffic on them.