Kaili 凯里 (ENG)

Since the arrival to the Airport in Guiyang (the province’s capital) I had a good first impression, seeing green-covered mountains and knowing that local food would be spicy made me remember Mexico lindo y querido. Despite having 3 million inhabitants, for Chinese standards this is not so big city. In Guiyang I stayed only a couple hours and that I can synthesize in 2 points:

1.- In the same way as Shanghai, Guiyang has a “Renmin Guangchang”, and underneath it there is a Walmart. The entrance resembles Paris’ Louvre Museum, and all this under the blessing of Mao Zedong’s statue.
2.- What a warm welcome to get spicy with Guizhou’s chili sauce, which by the way happens to be very very similar to Mexico’s Salsa macha, spicy sauce made with chilies, oil and peanuts. While we were at the bus station we ate some tofu with La Jiu (spicy sauce( and radish at a small stand in the street. Very Spicy! Very good!

Leaving the capital city behind, we took our way to Kaili, the headquarter for the vacations and the place from which we would visit other places. This city has 300,000 inhabitants, it was interesting because it is pretty much the same population as Córdoba, my hometown in Mexico. Something good about the trip is that I was with somebody that already lived there and had local friends, so it was wonderful that we had the opportunity of being with Kaili People, mainly students from all over Guizhou.

The first day I explored Kaili, we went to a traditional place to have Suan Tang (sour soup). Actually, there are two soups and they serve them in a collective bowl with yin yang shape, so you go to some kind of buffet were they have sticks and you can choose which ones you want. At the end they count how many sticks you had to know the check. In the Spanish version of this post there is a kinda funny joke that has no sense in English… whatever!



Kaili is worth visiting to see that everything is not lost in contemporary Chinese urban design, there it’s clear the interest of adapting traditional elements to modern buildings. Just take a look on the beautiful Stadium to understand what I say, ain’t beautiful?



This is the Minorities' Museum (for more information about minorities read the last post)



It was also quite interesring to be in a Chinese city where western brands are less outstanding than in big metropolitan areas. Besides, for the way Kaili people stared at us, it was clear that they are not that used to seeing foreigners around there. That day we spent a couple hours in a very nice and quiet park on the top of a hill, where we could see the city from the heights.



The park had an abandoned small railway. Those are John (from Alaska) and Apple (From Shaanxi Province, China)



Another particularity from Kaili is the large amount of kids riding this dynamical skateboard.



This statue is the central intersection for Kaili's main roads.