These house shoes have super flexible soles that are NOT gummy black.I fell in love with them, and they had that abstract red/black pair in my size. I sent photos to my wife from the store and she selected a pair too.

My hotel reservation in Guiyang was at a hotel I had stayed at on several previous visits. In the past it had been a great place with fantastic, friendly, helpful staff.

But on this trip, right away it was clear the place had really deteriorated. The new staff at the reception desk were nowhere near as helpful as before, my room was shabby, and to top it off, street repairs with noisy jackhammers made it difficult to sleep. I decided to find a different hotel for the rest of my stay in Guiyang.

Searching available rooms I focused on the general area of my original hotel. in the general area of the first one. I made a (cancel-able) reservation at a hotel two blocks away. The nightly cost was a bit more, but it was presented as a room with a (city) view.

I left my luggage at the original hotel, and walked over to this “possible” new place to scope it out. A lady showed me a room on the 7th floor that was head and shoulders above the first hotel. But when I looked out the window? Meh. Pretty much no view. So I said to the woman “city view? I don’t think so!” So she suggested we look at a room on the 12th floor. Well, a nice view! (sometimes you need to make a point of asking!) See photo.

So I switched hotels.

Later in the afternoon I asked the desk clerk if there was a guest laundry room.
Yep, a self service one.
She said that detergent was available at the front desk.

So latter I brought down a bunch of clothes in a bag. A desk clerk led me to the laundry room.
Self service? Perhaps I just seemed too stupid to figure out how to do it. Or maybe she was just being respectful of an old man.
She loaded the clothes.
She added the detergent, she set the control dials.
I was confused by the last setting screen. “How long will it run?” I asked. “Shall I come back in an hour?”
“No. When the washer is done, we will move the clothes to the dryer and handle that. Come back to the front desk around 8:30 and we’ll have it all ready for you.”
Wow… I really got spoiled!

The desk clerks were all smiles after that. And indeed very friendly any time I was coming or going!

Howie’s wished me goodbye with a smiling sincere bear hug before I disappeared into the secured area of the train station . I thought about how fortunate I was to have met him by chance years ago when I was visiting Suzhou. 🙂

I boarded the train- destination Guiyang.
The route began by heading toward Chongqing .

Along the way we passed by some nice rural scenery.

After a bit, daylight gave way to dusk, and then the dark of night.

It’s all good. 😊

well, I suppose it is appropriate that it was raining yesterday when we visited Dujiangyan. After all, that ancient engineering masterpiece was built to control flooding and also distribute water for irrigation!

Since I had neglected to bring s raincoat to China, I bought a cheap plastic on there at the site. Howie sort of bragged about his jacket. But about 20 minutes later sought out a vendor to buy his own rain suit.

Later I noticed some people with cheap rubber galoshes. My shoes were in great danger of becoming soaked, so I said to Howie – hey, let’s see if that pocket vendor stand has booties. Yep, they did. Howie and I both bought some. The lady there saw me struggling to get mine on. So she sat me on a stool and insisted on stretching them over my clown shoes herself. 🙂 Such a sweetie.