Journey on the old Silk Road..............

Its been a while.......life has been toooo busy.......but back to where we were......

After an amazing morning with the Desheng foster children, foster families and SWI staff, we headed for the peace and calm of the Ancient Desheng wall and Street, while we waited for the time to meet the Yizhou SWI Kids.

It was hot, peaceful, quiet and so calm after all the excitement of the morning 

                                            as we drove along the bumpy lane in our van.

I have visited several times with the girls,

 but it was lovely this time to share with  friends who hadn't been before

I could sense a visible relaxing all round as we stepped out of the van and just breathed it all in......

Aahhh... I can feel it now :-)

PEACE!

                               These are the ancient houses,100s of years old, almost in a time-warp

    with locals tending to their silk worms,

 carrying out their work on old bikes or trucks

                                                                   free range chickens.....

  We all stepped through the Ancient Desheng Wall,
 built by a Captain at the end of the Song Dynasty, over 1000 years ago.  

   and just marvelled in the scenes before us....... 

ancient houses with traditional rural lifestyles.

                                                  The Desheng Fu Sisters at their door......

I have only just recently fully understood the upside down Fu. I knew it it was to keep the Good Luck in, but never really quite sure how. Thanks, Pam for the explanation :-)

 "Idea is that you put the 'fu' upside down on your front door then when some one arrives they say 'Fu dao le' which means the fu character is upside down. But 'dao' also means to arrive so by saying 'fu daole' thay also say 'Fu (good fortune / happiness / luck) has arrived' so bringing good wishes to the house at the beginning of the New year." 

"Fu sisters".........off on their own Desheng travels........

The houses are mainly open to the street and locals are very friendly. I am sure there is not a huge passing tourist trade there, but they didn't seem too bemused by our presence?

and even invited us in to their homes........

                                                          checking out the Ancient Well

and using the "local conveniences"( that was a story in itself :-)

                        The fields around are full of Mulberry leaves used to feed the silk worms

                                                 rooms in the houses just full of silk worms.....

the next stage in the process

all done by hand

the girls were fascinated to touch the cocoons and learn all about the cycle

Somehow, one of these sweet little fluffy cocoons ended up in a bag heading for Scotland..check out tomorrow's Blog to see what happened to it!

                                        For now, we were back on our travels down the street.....

                                                        cleaning up as we went along

                                                      getting ready for some winnowing

                                                               and saying goodbye to our friends

                                      Shawn just couldn't resist a wee cuddle before we left.......

Love this picture which just sums up the beautiful connections we share around the world.