I live in China. I’ve had the thought that while I’m here, I should look into buying minerals that are mined locally, since presumably such treasures can be had for a fraction of the price they sell for after being exported.
I had the impression that China is known globally as a source of fluorite. I did an online search, and went to a geological museum in Hangzhou, and learned that the county of Wuyi (population 462,462), which belongs to the city of Jinhua, has fluorite mines and a fluorite museum. Therefore, during the Chinese New Year Holiday, I went with my cooperative husband and in-laws to Wuyi in search of beautiful stones. I assumed, since Wuyi has fluorite mines and a fluorite museum, that it also had shops selling fluorite products. If it does, we couldn’t find them! Nevertheless, our road trip shopping quest was successful.
The trip is documented in this post and five others:
This hotel’s interior decoration is trying to be European and specifically music-themed. It was nice, but a little weird, and not very “international” in terms of, say, the breakfast—although, to be fair, in addition to the typical Chinese breakfast foods, they did have cereal, milk, and coffee.
European lobby… with Chinese Spring Festival decorations, naturally.Not what most actual European hotel ceilings look like.I feel like this ceiling gives breakfast too much to live up to. That’s gold leaf up there!Both mornings we were in Wuyi, our breakfast was supplemented with fresh strawberries that Siqi’s parents bought from this little truck parked just outside the hotel.They were amazing! With fruit like this, maybe breakfast can live up to gold leaf ceilings after all.We were assigned room 8808, which was on the 8th floor. The first 8 is just decoration, I guess… After all, the more 8’s, the merrier!The view form the room. (The hotel was not in the center of Wuyi.)
Misty!Along the side of the road, near the water, were the remnants of a whole lot of new year fireworks!A government sign in Chinese and English. Even though I’ve been in China more than two years, I’m still surprised how much English there is, in contexts where I don’t expect to see any. Who is it that’s meant to be reading this English, anyway? Like, why is it there? Okay, it’s the result of a policy. But what purpose does this even serve? How many foreigners, English speaking and otherwise, could there possibly be in Wuyi???
Wuyi on Foot
We walked around the “old town” in Wuyi, but we also walked around the modern part looking for fluorite shops (and not finding any).
We turned off the main street into a residential area.This area felt like Japan to me for some reason.I like the geometry and texture of this building. Wish I knew when it was built… My ability to guess ages of buildings based on architectural style is not calibrated for China.“Forensic Evidence Room”After it started pouring, we called a taxi to take us back to our own car so we could try to visit a couple of farther away shop locations. While we were driving around, I spotted this very retro-space-age-looking sculpture.
To Jinhua
This is my preferred level of highway traffic!Zhejiang’s highways are impressive. They go smoothly right through the mountains.Some of the tunnels are elaborately decorated.The slogan on the hill says… 文明行万里平安走天下 (wénmíng xíng wànlǐ píng’ān zǒu tiānxià). Google says this means “Travel thousands of miles with civilization and travel the world with peace.” This “with civilization” is a reminder to behave well, so (probably) the meaning is more like “Travel thousands of miles in a civilized manner and travel the world with peace.”Stylized golden clouds and mountains! And a pagoda! Nice.
Jinhua
On our way back to Hangzhou, we visited Jinhua and had a leisurely barbecue lunch at a mall.
These feathers represent new year fireworks! I’d never seen anything like it. Genius!The mall elevator is also blasting upwards. Adorable! I almost got a photo with a kid’s face looking out of the “rocketship”, but he turned, so we can’t see him very well in this photo. Darn.Goodbye Jinhua! Time to take the highway back to Hangzhou.
