Shanxi People

Well, technically the girl on the left is from Henan.

Good-Bye Linfen

One of my last pictures in Linfen as I waved goodbye out the train window. I must admit I got a little choked up; I had grown attached to the dirty little city and the friends I had made there. The people are warm and the life is more relaxed, not to mention the food I've grown fond of and the Chinese I speak has been forever influence by this place. My friends would often joke how I'm a Shanxi native, and I'm ok with that.

Foreigners

Jess and his wife Yvain Ali and Andrew

Some of the other teachers at Shanxi Normal University chowing down at Big Pizza (比格披萨)

Giant "Linfen"

Lin Fen

Lishan Pt. 2 (历山)

Lishan Pt. 1 (历山)

One of my last weeks in Linfen a group of my friends to me out to see Lishan (历山), which is a type of natural preserve located in Yicheng county (翼城） (Note: this is a different Yishan then the one I blogged about on April 9, 2011 even though the chinese characters are the same and they are both within Linfen municipal). It was so much greener there then the majority of the area, and it was quite nice to be somewhere that didn't feel smothered with human impact. The rain that we had woke up the day to had blown over by the afternoon and the 3 hour car ride over some not so great roads was well worth the trip. Yishan is actually comprised of several mountain peaks, which is typical of most mountains in china. There seemed to be quite a few trails winding across the mountain sides; I really wished I had the time to do some camping there.

Drunk XiaoYu

XiaoYu is a 22-year-old kid that works full time over at the bike shop. Previously he had spent time working for the local Mafia, and has plenty of scars to prove it. I found out he likes to drink, but I also found out he has trouble turning it off. He has some pretty frightening drinking stories, such as waking up on the street with his arm busted and all possessions stolen, or jumping into a lake unable to swim, backpack cell phone and all, but around me mostly he just pined over a particular girl.