Twelve hours of well needed beauty sleep and we’re up and heading out to get our taxi to go to the castle. The drive take 45 minutes and, for the first time I see the industrial side of China that I had expected. Rows and rows of fields with large factories, tall machinery and loaded trucks driving back and forth carrying their produce. The English translations of the signs is also noticeable. I find it strange that they invested in English translations of signs but don't actually verify them to check that the translations actually make sense. I hadn't really been surprised by the dodgy restaurant dish translations; stewed Grandma, boiled brother. But road signs? I don't know China's infrastructure to assume who would pay but council/ district/ government money must've be allocated for the signs and half of them make no sense. 

We decide to split the cost of an English speaking guide and we’re presented with a rotund young man. Perhaps 20/22 years old? We ask his name and he says ‘it doesn't matter, my name is different to yours, we have different culture’. He's wearing pumps which are different colours in each piece of fabric- like those funny little cinquecentos that had all different coloured panels, stripy socks, rolled up jeans, a blue striped round neck jumper and black thick rimmed glasses. He had chubby cheeks and fluffy eyebrows. We decided that he looked like a muppet, to be more specific, Ernie. We named him Ernie. Ernie had clearly been doing job a long time. He had the rehearsed speech perfected down to the ground…however, any questions off the script? No chance. Ernie was also kind of lazy. All the temples and areas he took us to he didn't actually enter them. He'd walk us to the bottom of the staircase and say ‘up there temple room for xyz God. I wait here’, and take out his phone to get back to whatever conversation we had clearly interrupted upon requesting his services, click-clicking away. In Ernie’s defence, we certainly wouldn't have made our way out of the tunnels underneath the castle if we didn't have him with us. The tour of the castle, town and tunnels took a few hours and ended with Becs trying on a soldiers outfit. It was actually a child's soldiers outfit, my princess outfit from the day before was not a child's outfit. 

On the way back to Pingyao we decided we'd get lunch and try out the KTV bars. Loes and Michelle had some stuff to do first, so Annlee, Hamish, Becs and I went straight to eat. Now, let me ask you a question; what do you imagine when you order a spring roll? I tell you what you're probably not imagining; crispy beige, deep fried rolls…sprinkled in white sugar with a red bean paste filling. No? Nor us!! That's what was delivered when we ordered. After getting over the initial shock, they weren't bad at all. As Pingyao is a major tourist attraction, as expected there are stalls everywhere selling trinkets and ‘traditional’ Chinese hats, toys and sweets, so we decided to buy hats. Becs first purchase was a baby pink panda bowler, Hamish bough one of the traditional round based pyramid type straw hats, I bought a tiara (Dad, I know, OBVIOUSLY was going to be a tiara for me), Annlee bought this hideous salmon pink visor with a foot long peak which could be bent into shape which had a velcro strap that she could attach to her handbag. It was seriously gross. We had seen all the old ladies wearing them in different shades. I don't think she really wanted to admit it, but I think she enjoyed having it. 

Donning our bargain hats we wandered around Pingyao. First stop we played pool- hats had to stay on. Then tried to chase down happy hours in all the different bars. Tsingtao brewery appears to have the complete monopoly on beers. Beers also don't have exact percentage noted on them. They'll say >3%, or even >8% on a couple we saw. We eventually ran out of happy hour slots and had ended up in a bar next door to the guesthouse, still wearing our hats. Gradually more and more of the group joined us, all going off to purchase their own stupid hats. We looked like a complete bunch of misfits. Like table number 9 in the wedding singer, I reckon. Our ridiculous looking, motley crew went off in search of the KTV bars, and when we found them a few dark horses appeared; Loes did practically the entire ABBA back catalogue and Victoria is a seasoned rock karaoke singer. Hats still intact, locals bored of westerners dominating the karaoke machine, we all went back to the guesthouse to sleep.