Leaving Early to Explore Ji’an 集安

Entrance to the Wandu Mountain City 丸都山城

Entrance to the Wandu Mountain City 丸都山城

The thing with early darkness in the northern hemisphere is that you get disoriented as to the time of the day. Of course, I still have my mobile phone to tell me what time it really was, but the skewed sunrise and sunset is really affecting my body clock. I would tend to sleep early here in the north just because of that. There is that little thing about nothing much happening in Ji’an anyway, I didn’t want to watch television anyway so I might as well actually treat this as a vacation, which it really is. It was a nice thing that I got the entire room all to myself since they gave me a “bargain” for staying two nights here.

Part of the Former City Walls of the Wandu Mountain City 丸都山城

Part of the Former City Walls of the Wandu Mountain City 丸都山城

The next day, I got up later than I thought I would and prepared for the day. I would be exploring Ji’an’s famous UNESCO sites here and I wanted to get out early. As I was heading down, I noticed that my tour guide is already at the lobby craning his neck hoping to catch a glimpse of me. Was he thinking that I would run away and get someone else’s service? Can’t blame him though, tourists will start dwindling because of the onset of the winter, that I one CNY 100 he can’t afford to lose. He was thrilled and relieved to see me coming down the hotel. He didn’t know my name and neither did I know his, his only clue would be that I was a foreigner and I would probably be the only one in the hotel at that time.

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