The Hukou Waterfall, the second-largest in China, is located on the Yellow River in Linfen, Shanxi province. [Photo provided to China Daily]

There was a light drizzle falling the morning we visited the Old Town of Pingyao, making the stone paving and more than 600-year-old city walls slick and softening the outlines of rooftops and well-preserved residences in a misty glimmer.

Our group－16 foreign writers, bloggers and photographers accompanied by China Daily staff and camera crew－were on the second day of a five-day cultural tour of Shanxi province, sponsored by the media outlet and the Shanxi Tourism Bureau.

Titled "Shanxi in the Eyes of Foreigners", the visit could as easily have been named "Foreigners in the eyes of Shanxi", as everywhere we went Chinese tourists and residents were eager to have their photos taken with a laowai.

We were just as eager to photograph them－a 97-year-old man with straggly wisps of beard who smiled at us serenely as he sat in his doorway watching the tourists pass by, a snaggle-toothed man in his 80s whose lined skin and gnarled hands spoke of a life of labor, a grinning electric bus driver with long gray braids and dancing eyes who laughed as one of our photographers professed his love for her.

We had arrived in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province, the previous day, some taking the highspeed train from Beijing or Xi'an, in neighboring and better-known Shaanxi province, others flying in from abroad, including from London, England.