Our search for a Northern Chinese retreat (with pictures)

Hi Steemit!

Today we went on an adventure into the North Chinese countryside to find a winter retreat. Baoding, unfortunately is famous for being a particularly polluted city so the teachers I work with all discussed finding a place high in the mountains that we could share on weekends to recharge and get some fresh air.

My colleague who speaks both Chinese and English put his feelers out to see if any locals knew of somewhere rural that there may be a cottage we could rent. We found someone who works in the city who, along with his friend who has family in this mountain village took us in his car to scope the place out.

The people who brought us kindly took us for a traditional meal so that we would know what type of food the locals ate. In this village they have many cornfields so they use corn as staple food. We had delicious corn noodles and a kind of corn dough (very similar to polenta in Italy)

When we arrived we were greeted by the land owner. Looking very much like the Chinese Charles Bronson, it was very apparent he ran this town. They were very kind, him and his wife showed us around a few properties they had. Traditional Chinese cottages with a courtyard for growing your own vegetables. Most of the people who live here work the land or work in the local mines.

It’s a “fixer-upper” with no running water or bathroom but we do have access to electricity. The teacher we were with, who has an interior design background had a good idea in his head of what needs doing. He discussed the planning with the owner in Chinese and they came to an agreement of what we could do to modify the cottage and make it liveable.

WE FOUND A SWORD!!

After this the owner took us on a walk through his lands, we went through the corn fields and walnut trees, the Cedar forest, walked past the family plot where generations of his family were laid to rest (obviously no pictures were taken of the plot).

He then took us higher up in his car to show us a view of The Great Wall. After that he allowed us to fill our water bottles up in the villages natural spring.

After this we went out for dinner, the deal was celebrated with a few bottles of baijiu (a very strong Chinese spirit) and we drove back to Baoding.

You can see from the pictures much work needs to be done. I shall be documenting the work on Steemit as we progress.

I'm going to follow up this post with another that shows in more detail how we are planning to refurbish the property

Thanks for reading!

Charlotte :)