Fire Crackers, Pingyao, Shanxi Province, China

A 10 hour train ride from Beijing, landed us in Pingyao at 5:30 AM. It was cold, the coldest we have had on the trip so far. From the train station, we took a motorcycle taxi through the city wall and into the old city. Pingyao has a complete old city wall dating from the Ming or Qing or Something Dynasty, and it is all intact. It measures just over 6 km around. We met a Canadian guy named Kevin (pictured on steps), and the 3 of us rented some classy bikes to tour around the town. My bike was named "Forever" and had a leopard skin seat (Flickr for pics)!
First stop on the ride, the local school. We were mobbed by the kids and I think we disrupted the classes a little. After a couple more km's on the sweet rides, we found these old guys. They keenly spotted the fire crackers in Kevin's basket and their faces gleamed with delight. We let them at it, and this is the result. A couple of kids they turned out to be. It was so hilarious, we bought more and found the same guys later on in the day. They blew them up on the main street, only to have a shopkeeper come out and give us grief, wanting us to clean up the mess. I guess we did start it though!
The rest of the day we spent in the small alleys, just interacting with all the people we saw. It brings them great joy it seems to have us just say "hello" to them. There were some fantastic characters, and the children were a delight to play with. An excellent experience in Pingyao. *Stub