A Drive in the Country

Wherein Rae and Mamma Rae and Mamma Rae's friend get rather lost.

The other day Mom and Vicki and Frank (our helpful driver) went on a quest for the idyllic hamlet of Lizhifang, where, according to some magazine they had found, one would stroll among the streets where farmers and fishermen were painting lovely quaint folk-style art in the shade of giant chestnut trees.

In reality, Lizhifang is a pretty standard rural Chinese village, kinda dirty, rather disorganized, and hot and dusty. No chestnut trees were to be found, nor were there any farmers whiling away the hours with paint and brushes. Nor did anyone anywhere know anything about that there paintin stuff. After Frank asked maybe 25 people, we did find a gallery (sort of) where there was some of said art. It was rather interesting.

This is Frank.

He's very polite and helpful.

He most likely thinks we're nuts.

We also were invited to the home of a man whose wife does fabric cuts in the style of these paintings. It was a brief trip, but interesting nonetheless.

We left there and went for a drive into the country.

It was really a lovely day.

Until we couldnt find the way back onto the highway.
And this randon man (see his back, on the motorcycle) offered to take us to a shortcut.

In exchange for a cigarette.

We ended up on a super rocky road out in BFE.

*see urbandictionary.com if you dont know what that stands for

But we saw some parts of a really rural village.


This cool big basket was laying on the side of the road.

(Road pictured here is not a good example of what we were driving on)

And in the end, it all worked out fine.

And Ill live to blog another day. Great.