Qiao Family Compound and Pingyao - Day 3

This was our extra day in Pingyao, so we went at a rather leisurely pace. I slept in until nearly eight (we had been getting up at seven most mornings), and everyone was up by nine. After everyone was ready we headed to the bus station to catch a bus to the Qiao family courtyard, about forty minutes away. The Qiao family courtyard is where the film 'Raise the Red Lantern' was filmed, and it apparently it has some quite stunning architecture. The bus we caught was full, and so we were given fold up seats and sat in the aisle. This is standard practice in China, despite the obvious safety violations. We had to take a bus bound for Taiyuan and get the driver to drop us off at the courtyard. It was pretty obvious when we had arrived, as there was a giant parking lot and lots of red lanterns. The walk to the courtyard itself was swarming with tourist vendors and tourist restaurants. The courtyard is apparently very popular with Chinese tourists. Despite it being nearly noon, we decided to have lunch on the way out and get a snack. We bought some more of those peanut butter things that they had been selling in Pingyao. They are flattened by strong men hammering them into shape. It was interesting to watch. The courtyard itself was actually very small, and was absolutely packed with tourists. At some points it was difficult to even move. It was quite a beautiful structure though, with a total of six courtyards and a large garden. We finished looking through it in just over an hour, and as we came out it started to rain. We sought refuge in a tourist restaurant. Unfortunately, the food was dreadful . We ordered some soup, and it was very sour. After bad experiences with bones and chicken it was normal practice for us to ask if a dish had bones in it prior to ordering. We decided to take a gamble here and order something called 红烧鸡块。 The name is ingrained in my mind due to the horror of the dish. When it came we were unpleasantly surprised to discover the chicken foot on top and a near total absence of meat. It was simply disgusting. We were so unsatisfied with lunch, that we had to get an ice cream afterwards to satiate our hunger. We then went to the roadside and hailed a bus bus back to Pingyao. It was almost completely empty, so we had a reasonably comfortable trip back.