Saturday, April 24, 2010

Two hours in Hefei

Most of today was spent on the bus and plane, but I did have a couple of hours walking around Hefei, the Anhui province capital. In my guidebook there is very little information about this place and I didn’t have much of an itinerary. The bus dropped me off fairly close to downtown and that’s where I decided to explore.

I walked through a few parks and found them quite nice, but the best of the walk was visiting the Mingjiao Temple. When I got there, there was some kind of ritual being performed. Monks were sitting down and reading from texts while a voice over a loudspeaker recited the words. I found it kind of peaceful.

From the looks I was receiving on the street, I got the impression that this city doesn’t see many foreigners. I had a lot of people stare and some say “hello” or “how are you” followed by laughter or giggling. It seems to be a mostly younger people. Two people I spoke with on the bus were university students and I wonder if much of the province’s young attend university here.

One of many Communist style city statues:



Mingjiao Temple:



2 comments:

Steve said...

That photo of the little bridge over the water looks soooo relaxing. I'd much rather be there than sitting here doing my taxes and watching the snow fall.... blah...

Marko said...

The parks were quite nice in Hefei. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I had a place to put my backpack. It was starting to get heavy after two hours. :)

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