Today A Wu, Jiefu, and some friends took me on a trip a few minutes outside Pingguo to see one of the main power stations, powered by water coming in from a dam. Apparently it powers a considerable percentage of Pingguo but I'm not sure what exactly that percentage is. On the way we had what I consider now to be a fairly typical experience of being stopped by people fixing the road. By people I mean women with shovels shovelling dirt around in an attempt to smooth out potholes or something similar I guess. We sat in the van for a couple of minutes before I realised no-one had any intention of doing anything other than waiting, so I decided to get out and help them. This spurred a couple of the blokes to get out and help to, not to mention a couple of photo-opportunities...
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| Mucking in to fix the road |
Anyway, it was an interesting excursion, and I met the bloke looking after the station after we had woken him up. It does seem like the easiest job in the world, sitting in a reclining chair, watching over machines that are doing their stuff.
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| Me, A Wu, Uncle Lu, two mates, and Jiefu at the hydro-electric centre in Pingguo |
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| The bloke who was looking after the machines (sorry to wake you) |
Maybe it wasn't in keeping with the nature of the visit but I noticed some rather pretty flowers on the side of the road...
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| A rather pretty flower |
Later, back in Pingguo itself we went to the guangchang to look at the fountains before they would be used. Jiefu, who I gather knows some government officials, took me underground to the control area of the fountains. I would have loved to play about with the jets of water and soak my friends above but it looked rather military and I dared not touch a thing.
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| At the fountain control centre with Jiefu |
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Totamly un-posed pick with a tiny A Wu
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Back upstairs the men were getting restless and there was only one thing for it: bumper cars! We talked the owner into letting us have the complete area for a few minutes and enjoyed proper bumping (the likes of which are no longer allowed in the UK) for a good 10 minutes while darkness dropped around us like a shroud from Naples.
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| Uncle Yellow...it was pretty good fun |
As it was dark now we went to the fountains to wait for the display. A number of school kids saw me and asked to take my photo with them. Weirdly, they also insisted that I take pics of them with me with my own camera. Oh well who knows maybe some day in the future one of them will recognise themselves here...
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| Some nice schoolkids at the guangchang |
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| Me with Uncle Yellow and his woman Xiao Chong |
Later in the evening we went to drink tea. This time it actually meant "drink tea" and I was very happy with the infusion!
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| The infusion pleased me |
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