The Chronicles of Yangshuo: The Last Two Days

Our third day in Yangshuo was beautiful.  We rented bikes for the day and set off for the Golden Water Caves near Moon Hill.  It was a lovely ride, although our backsides were still a little sore from the first day.  There were about a billion bikes out on the road though.  Seriously...bikes everywhere.  Normal bikes, tandem bikes, little two-seater surreys, mopeds, motorcycles, and then there were also cars, buses, trucks, and so on.  It was CHAOS.  Seriously, we all broke so many traffic laws.  But to get anywhere in a timely fashion you had not choice but to weave, cross, dodge, and take matters into your own hands.

OH!  That reminds me.  I forgot to tell this story in the first Chronicles of Yangshuo.  When we were riding back from Moon Hill, Soren, Jenna, and I were playing a game to see how many people we could get to say "Hi" to us after we said "Hi" to them.  It was super fun to ride up alongside people and say, "Ni Hao!" They would respond with a surprised "Hullo!" and then they'd smile.  It was a happy game.  As I was riding up alongside two Chinese guys in a surrey, I hollered "NI HAO!"  and quickly passed.  They responded with a quick "Ni Hao," but then noticed that I was white...and blonde.  I then heard a frenzied "Hullo.  Hullo!  You are beautiful!"  It was pretty funny.  A few minutes later, I pulled over to the side of the road to join Jenna and Soren who were waiting there.  The rest of our group had gotten behind, so we decided to wait for them.  While we were stopped there, my two friends in the surrey drove up.  The one leaped out of his seat and I knew it was picture time.  I'm 99.9% sure that he is trying to kiss my cheek in that picture. He was hilarious. I'm just mad I didn't get a picture with him on my camera.

Anyway...anyway...we rode to the Caves.  We changed into our swimsuits in a super sketchy bathroom, waited for our guide, and then went into the caves.  As far as caves go...I mean...it was a cave.  It had cool formations and everything, but what made it fun was the lights.  They lit the caves up with all kinds of colors and it was awesome.  We were joined on our cave tour by a man and his daughter who turned out to be Utah Mormons.  Small World!  But Soren and I couldn't stop with the Goonies references.  After all, it was our time...it was our time down there.

The lights in the cave

ooohhh...pretty

Sitting on the throne

 After walking through the caves, we came upon the mud pits.  Awwwww yeeaaaaahhhh...mud.  We slid into the cool mud that went up to our thighs.  It was pretty thin mud with grainy bits of this and that in it, but it was oddly refreshing.  Our guide kept motioning that I needed to sit down and float.  I didn't really see how that was going to happen, but I put all fear aside and sat in the mud.  I'm not sure what it is about that stuff, but you just float.  I didn't even have to try.  But once you were on your back it was hard to roll over or get back up.  It was super fun.  They even had a little slide for us to go down. But we did not find One Eyed Willie's treasure...that was kind of a bummer.

Standing in the mud

floating in the mud

Embracing the mud

Praising the mud

We had mud everywhere.  Even after showing and rinsing, sitting in a hot spring for 30 minutes, and rinsing again, we could not get rid of it.

That afternoon, we had some amazing Indian food...like...really amazing Indian food.  Award winning, I believe.  It was tasty.

Filling our stomachs with yumminess

That night we wandered around Yangshuo, taking in the atmosphere, buying lots of stuff, and eating more food.  Soren and I went and danced in the park with a bunch of locals.  Some of them were doing dance aerobics and others were doing ballroom-type dancing.  One of the mountains towered right above us.  Beautiful place to dance.

The next day was possibly my favorite.  We got to take our Li River cruise on a bamboo raft...well, blue pvc pipe raft...but it was still cool.  The docks were only a 30ish minute bike ride from our hostel.  We went to the wrong docks at first, but soon everything was straightened out and we were on our way down the river.  Our bikes were strapped to the front so we didn't even have to worry about parking them.

At the docks

Jenna, Morgan, and Heather on their raft

The view

Me and Soren

We stopped off at a cute little village and looked around.  The whole area was just charming.

 I was a little worried about the ride back.  I was told it would take two hours by bike.  But after unloading at another little village, we met two girls on a moped who were going to Yangshuo.  They showed us a shortcut, so we got back in plenty of time, and saw some beautiful scenery as we rode. (Also some really bumpy road).

That night we had our cooking class.  Our teacher, Mona, took us to the market where everyone buys their food.  She introduced us to various vegetables that we'd be using in the class.  After that, we rode out to the adorable Yangshuo cooking school.  The class consisted of the seven of us and a couple from Belgium.  We made a eggplant, ginger dish; steamed pork stuffed mushrooms, pumpkin flower, and tofu; cashew chicken; a garlic green vegetable; and the Yangshuo delicacy Beer Fish.  It was all SUPER good.  And now we know how to cook awesome Chinese food.  I honestly can't say enough about the cooking class, so I'm not going to try.

In the Market

Our dinner table

The ingredients

Soren preparing his dishes

The finished product

That night was caught a bus back to Guilin and the next morning we flew back to Nanjing.  I felt my heart break as I left.  It was so beautiful and so fun.  A great way to finish up our time in China.

The Chronicles of Yangshuo: The Voyage to the Rice Terraces

The morning of our rice terrace tour started early.  The bus came to pick us up, bright eyed and bushy tailed, at 7:10 am.  Whew!  Since it was a 3 hour ride there, we had to start super early.

Most of the bus ride was uneventful. We started out in a van where Soren was too tall to see out the windows, but fortunately we were transferred to a GIANT bus for the duration of our trip.  About 2 hours later, we got off our bus and onto a "public" bus to take us up the mountain.

Now, let me just say something here.  If you're going to have a safety railing installed to save vehicles from plummeting off the road and down a cliff, you should probably make that railing tall enough to save every variety of vehicle that uses the road.  As we wound up and around the mountains to the top,  I got the impression that, had we started to tip off the road, those small safety railings would have done nothing to prevent our bus from tumbling to the bottom.  And that would have been quite the fall.

It was a terrifying drive, especially for Soren who is afraid of heights.  I'm not particularly scared of heights, but the thought of falling 1000 feet to my death doesn't exactly make me giddy.  Also, the windiness of the road was starting to make me a tad carsick (and by a tad, I mean "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, get me off this bus.") 

We got to the top in one peace, and we all managed to maintain our composure.  After getting off the bus, we followed our tour guide through a charming village to our lunch destination.  For lunch, I ordered "Bamboo rice." I wasn't sure what to expect, but I figured you can't go too wrong with rice.  As it turns out, "Bamboo rice" is rice that's cooked inside bamboo!  It had a very fun taste and texture.  Soren ordered Kung Pow Chicken, but had to change to Kung Pow Pork because they said they were out of chicken.  Kind of hard to believe when we saw chickens walking all over that villiage....ah well.

My Bamboo Rice

The amazing thing about this village was that it was built on a hill.  It doesn't matter where you're going, or who you're visiting, you will be climbing stairs.  The people who live there are super strong.  I couldn't help but applaud the 70 year old women carrying a giant basket full of stuff up one of the stone staircases.  She smiled at me and probably thought to herself, "Look at that poor, sweaty white girl, huffing and puffing like she's going to die.  Don't feel bad about yourself, this is only easy for me because I do it twelve times a day."

To that I say, "Nice try Chinese lady.  I'm sure you do this thirteen times a day."

One staircase that was particularly fun had a little stream running under it.  We took about a billion pictures, but none of them really do it justice.

Soren and our favorite staircase

Once we got out of the village, we were able to see the rice terraces.  OH MY WORD!  SO BEAUTIFUL.  I'm going to be honest here...I wasn't really sure about the whole "rice terraces" thing.  I mean,  rice terraces? Really?  How could it be that cool? 

For realz peeps...it was that cool.

Wow...I promise never to use the word "realz" or "peeps" again. Let's just pretend that never happened.

I'm so embarrassed. Oh look!  Rice terraces...

This picture is worth clicking on so you can see it bigger.  Do it...

What are those two people doing in my picture?  They sure are attractive, though.

After the rice terraces, we hiked back down, and got back on the public bus.  I think the drive down the mountain was less scary than up it...but that may only be because it felt shorter.  I don't know...still pretty terrifying. 

Our next destination was the Long Hair village.  Women in this village have...you guessed it...very long hair.  But that wasn't the cool part, the cool part, was how they do their hair.  How you do your hair shows your situation in life.  Unmarried girls cover their hair.  Married women with no children do their hair one way, and married women with kids do their hair with a big o' knot on their forehead.  We got to see a 45 minutes show in that village, but we were warned that if we drank the tea there, we had to stir it with one chopstick.  If you stirred the tea with two chopsticks you would have to stay the night in the village.

The women doing their hair

Another tradition in that village is that they pinch your bum as you leave.  That was fun.  Very friendly.

The ride back was a little uncomfortable because we were in a tiny van.  Poor Soren didn't really have a backrest, and Krista's seat was soaking wet.  But taking the van was going to be faster than the bus, so it ended up being worth it.

That evening we walked around Yangshuo, bought a few things, and ate.  Nothing too noteworthy.  Oh, and we went to the kissing fish spa. 

The KISSING FISH SPA!  What am I talking about?  That's super noteworthy.  So you sit with your feet in a tank of fish, and they eat all the dead skin off you feet.  Tickles like crazy.
Krista, Jenna, and Soren were the first brave ones to try it.

Although I said I was too ticklish, I did end up doing it. It was so fun but it tickled so much!  Imagine dozens of tiny little mouths sucking on your feet: in-between your toes, around your cuticles, and everywhere else.  Our feet were super smooth afterwards!

The fish attaching my ankles

My "I'm being tickled" face.

  The only thing we didn't like about the kissing fish spa was having to put back on our gross shoes and socks afterward.

The Chronicles of Yangshuo: The bike and her rider

Yangshuo doesn't have an airport or train station, so we flew in to the Guilin airport and stayed our first night at the Guilin Wada Hostel.  As we rode the bus from the airport into town, we were amazed by the mountains surrounding us.  It was dark outside, but we could still see the outlines of the Limestone figures.  My heart could barely contain itself in my chest. 

The next morning we walked through pouring rain to the bus station where we were ushered onto the next bus to Yangshuo.  It wasn't a bad bus ride since it was only about 2 hours through beautiful scenery.  My only complaints were that the windows kept fogging up and they were playing "Snakes on a Plane" for the entertainment.  "Snakes on a Plane?" Really?  A scary, rated R movie on a public bus?  Unedited?  I was pretty unhappy about it.  Movies like that give me a bad feeling in my stomach that lingers for a few days.  But I put my head phones in and tried to drown out the F-bombs and screams coming from the speakers.

We finally made it to Yangshuo and jumped off the bus.  Amazement took hold of us.  Although I'd done a ton of research on the place, none of it could have prepared me for how beautiful it was.  The city was nestled right in the middle of the mountains.  They just popped up everywhere like giant stalagmites.  The city itself was adorable: just a perfect little tourist town.

The mountains around Yangshuo

Yangshuo's West Street

We had a driver from the hostel come pick us up at the bus station.  We were booked to stay at the Trippers Carpe Diem hostel and we knew we wouldn't be able to find it without help.  To get to our hostel from Yangshuo is about a 20 minute walk, or a 10 minute bike ride.  It was in the country, surrounded by mountains, and we loved it.  The staff was friendly and helpful, the food was delicious, and the tours they helped us book were fantastic.

The view from the deck of the Trippers Carpe Diem hostel.

After settling into our rooms (Soren and I had our own), we rented some bikes and set off for Moon Hill.  I was given a map with directions from one of the ladies at the hostel.  There were two routes to get to Moon Hill: a scenic (1 1/2 hours) or a short route (30 minutes).   The vote for the scenic route was unanimous, so we picked out our bikes, and set off for an adventure. We hadn't gotten very far before it started to pour rain. Luckily, we had to walk our bikes through a covered shopping area and the downpour was practically over by the time we'd made it through.  Maddie, Krista, and I deemed it necessary to buy ponchos at this point.

It wasn't long before we were into some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen.  Gorgeous mountains all around us.  The word "Wow" probably escaped my lips 12-15 times on this bike ride alone. 

The route was a little complicated. I had to keep checking my map to make sure we were going in the right direction, but we only managed to get off course twice (neither of them completely my fault...but mostly...).

I took a couple videos as we rode, trying to capture the amazingness of what was going on.  For future reference: biking and videoing at the same time is not always a good idea.

The bike, her rider, and her rider's husband.

 I did not kill the chicken.

The chicken did not kill me.

I didn't even really fall off my bike, but I gave that chicken a good glare anyway. 

The ride was beautiful and relaxing for most of us, but for Jenna and Krista, it was a little exhausting.  Both of them got flat tires half way through the ride.  A traveling bike repairman fixed their bikes (patched the tube and everything), but Krista's didn't hold the air for long. Also, a kind Chinese gentleman (whose name escapes me) stopped to help us negotiate with the bicycle repair man and he ended up joining us on our venture to Moon Hill so he could practice his English.

Moon Hill was awesome.  The climb was really hard.  There were a lot of steps, the steps were wet, and I hadn't had much to eat all day.  Soren, like the superhero he is, stayed behind to help me get to the top.  We all looked like a mess, but the view was so worth it.

Moon Hill from below

The view from the top

The group (Photography by the Chinese Gentleman)

Doing Kung Fu by the Moon

We had also planned to go the the Gold Water Caves that night, but were too exhausted.  We bid farewell to our Chinese friend and decided to take the short bike ride back. Our bottoms were not happy to get back on the bikes, but we gritted our teeth and pushed on.  The ride back was also beautiful even though it was on a busier street.  It started pouring on us hard core, so we stopped at a little restaurant for some dinner. 

Once our bellies were full and the rain had eased up a bit, we rode the rest of the way back to the hostel.  That night we rested, booked a tour to the rice terraces, and Soren and I got some dessert at the cafe. 

Day one: Huge success

The Chronicles of Yangshuo: The Plane, The Customer Service Rep, and The Credit Card

Before even getting to China, I knew I was going to Yangshuo...whatever the cost. 

When our vacation time for Yangshuo was shortened, I knew I was going to fight for as much time as possible...whatever the cost. 

When taking the 25 hour train ride to Yangshuo was deemed "not worth it," I knew I would find another way...whatever the cost.

I found a way.

Well, we all found a way. 

After much debate and consideration, we decided to take a 2 hour plane instead of the 25 hour train.  Although the plane tickets ended up costing almost 3 times as much as the train tickets would have, I think many of you would agree that, in this case, the time was worth much more than the money.

One of our ILP directors recommended ctrip.com to book our flights.  Despite the following story, it was a big help, it got us great prices on our tickets, and I'd recommend it if you plan on traveling within China anytime soon. We were advised to buy all the tickets with one card, that way we'd be sure to get all the tickets for the same price.  Jenna was the only one who had enough money on her card to pay for all the flights.  So we booked the flights and planned to pay Jenna back the next day.

Feeling rather good about ourselves, we decided to get on with our regular evening-time activities.  Most of us decided to go to Xuezelu for dinner, but Jenna stayed home.  In the metro station, I received a phone call from ctrip.  Since I was about to get on a train, and I couldn't hear the phone very well, I told them to send me a text message instead.  Before we got to the next metro stop, I received a distressing text message informing me that our payment had failed.

Boo.

Soren and I hopped off the metro and rushed back to our apartments.  Jenna had no idea why the payment had failed and everything seemed to be in order with her card, so I called ctrip back.  As it turns out, you cannot use a Debit card over the internet in China.  It just doesn't work.  It must be a CREDIT card.  Dumbest thing you've ever heard?  Yeah, us too.  Only a few of us had credit cards and none of us had a big enough credit limit to pay for all the plane tickets.  I asked the customer service representative what we should do.

Customer service isn't China's strong point.

She told us we could go to the ctrip office in downtown Nanjing and pay with a Debit card there.  She gave us an address in a neighborhood we somewhat knew.  Since it was an hour metro ride away and we only had two hours before the office closed, Soren, Jenna, and I rushed off to save the day.  Why didn't we just wait until the next day, you ask?  I'll tell you.  Ctrip can get you great deals on flights, but the prices are constantly changing.  In the process of trying to buy tickets earlier that night, one of the prices jumped up over 100 yuan.  We didn't want the prices to go up anymore, and as long as we paid for our flight before the night was over, we were guaranteed that the prices wouldn't change.

Just before getting on the metro, I got another phone call.  Once again, I couldn't hear the person on the other end of the phone so I had them text me again.  The text had a different address on it then the one we were going to.  So I called them back to ask which address we were supposed to go to.  The lady on the phone confirmed that we could go to the address we'd originally planned on, so we shrugged our shoulders and soldiered on.

We got off in downtown Nanjing, and snagged a taxi to take us to the ctrip office.  The taxi driver took us to an area that we actually knew quite well and pointed to a building.  We looked around and couldn't really see anything that looked like the right place.  I showed the address to a guy in a painting shop, and he indicated that the place we were looking for was upstairs.  He sent us around to the back of the building to an alleyway. 

The entrance to the stairway was sketchy, at best.  There were no lights in the stairwell.  Since we were sure the office would be on the 7th floor, we voted against the stairs.  Seven flights of pure darkness would be scary enough, but we also weren't 100% sure there would be something for us when we reached the top.  So we decided to take the elevator.  One of them had broken buttons, and the other one had mostly broken buttons.  We took the one with mostly broken buttons.  The seventh floor button was broken, but we figured we could go to the 6th floor and brave the stairway from there.

This is the part where you scream out, "You IDIOTS!  Don't you know you're in a horror movie?  Something terrible is about to happen to you!  RUN RUN RUN!"  To which I would reply, "You watch too many movies."  Seriously though, it was super sketch.

Soren had hit every working button in the elevator, so we got to see what each floor had to offer.  There wasn't much.  Most floors were dark.  Some had eerie lights.  One had the elevator gated off.  When we reached floor 6, we had to turn on some lights.  Light didn't do us any good, though, because there were no stairs.  It was impossible to get to floor seven through any other way than an elevator...and the 7th floor elevator buttons weren't working. 

Now we were officially frustrated.  We went back to the street and started looking for another building.  I called ctrip again, but it took me about 5 times to get a hold of them.  As it turned out, we were at the old location of the ctrip office.  The NEW location was at the address they texted me.  Okay...so why did TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE tell me that both were fine?  I got so frustrated, I had to hand the phone to Soren to sort it all out.

In the end, we went back to the apartments.  Got everybody together and booked the flights on three separate credit cards. Was it a hastle?  Yes.  Was it worth it?  Absolutely. 

This past Saturday, as we sat in our comfy seats on the plane, being served our tasty airplane food, we took great pride in that decision.  No 25 hour train ride for us!

If you're disappointed you didn't actually get to hear about our trip yet, fear not!  More is to come.

Sightseeing in Nanjing

Nanjing is an amazing.  For the past few weeks Soren and I have been able to go around visiting different sights around the city.  We went back to the Confucius temple area, visited 1912 street (a hotspot for restaurants, bars, and clubs), saw the Linggu temple on Purple mountain, and climbed around the Volcanic crater park.  It's been lots of fun, and it's definitely kept us busy on the weekends. 

The nine story Linggu Pagoda.  Took us a long time to climb up the spiral staircase.

Me and Soren at the base of the Linggu Pagoda.

Me, Soren, Krista, Maddie, and our friend Caroline on the volcano mountain.

The leaning tower of somewhere or another. 

Enjoying the raining weather near the mouth of the Volcano

Dinner with our culture club at a SUPER fancy KTV

On a boat ride at the Confucius Temple

Soren getting in touch with his inner Dragon at the Botanical Gardens by the Confucius Temple.

Iron Man 3 (Don't worry...no spoilers)

Sometimes it's hard to be in China...like when a movie comes out that you really want to see.  Fortunately, we have a nice theater about 15 minutes away. Unfortunately, movie tickets cost 60 kuai.  Fortunately, Tuesdays are half off.  So this past Tuesday, we set out to see Iron Man 3.  It was pretty awesome because it was in English with Chinese subtitles.  It was also awesome because there was an added 5 minutes of special Chinese footage...but it was slightly less awesome because none of the Chinese footage had English subtitles.  They also felt a little out of place with the rest of the movie.

But here was our favorite part:  Before the movie began they had a special add for a type of bean flavored milk they drink here.  We were all like...okay?  Hurray for bean flavored milk.  But THEN, towards the end of the movie, after all of this dramatic stuff had happened, it showed one of the Chinese actors in the middle of a very important phone call.  As he finished the call, he reached for...you guessed it...the bean flavored milk, and poured it into a glass.  Nice product placement.  Subtle.  The whole theater burst out laughing.

Another interesting thing that happened was after the movie ended.  All Marvel movies have a special scene at the end, right?  Well, they don't in China.  As soon as the credits started, everyone bolted out of the theater and the seven of us were left wondering, what happened? The cleaning crew was already done cleaning the theater before the rolling credits had even started.  We waited until the end for the extra scene...but nothing happened.  Sad day.

Still, it was a great movie, and quite the experience.  I guess we'll have to wait until we get back to the states before we get to see the after-the-credits scene.

Chengdu

The second half of our long vacation was spent in Chengdu.  Unlike all of our other vacation destinations, I'd never been to this city, so I wasn't sure what to expect.  Our train to Chengdu from Xi'an was a bit confusing.  We had two tickets stapled together, but the train number was the same on both tickets.  We weren't sure if this meant we'd change trains or just change cars at a certain point.  The first tickets were for two hours on hard seats and the other tickets were for 14 hours on hard sleepers.  An hour into the journey, everyone starting asking what we were supposed to do once we got to the change ticket station.  Soren and I didn't know any better than anyone else and I just said, "We probably need to find someone who speaks English to help us."  By saying this, I was hoping that some Chinese person nearby would step up...which didn't happen.  I was also hoping that one of the teachers would tap somebody on the shoulder and ask...which also didn't happen.  Feeling burdened with head teacher-ness, I knew I had to figure something out.
I decided to get up from my seat and look around the train for likely English speakers.  Moving from my seat was actually somewhat of a relief.  I was sitting by a middle aged Chinese couple who insisted on putting their bare feet next to me on the seats.  And they didn't have pretty feet.  Standing in the aisle had its dangers, though, considering some dude was smoking a gigantic pipe next to the bathrooms (seriously, this thing was a chimney).  But I continued to look around for someone that might be able to help us.

It was getting close to midnight, I was tired, I was confused, and I was losing patience.  Finally I just belted out, "DOES ANYBODY SPEAK ENGLISH?"

I don't know who laughed harder: the ILP teachers, or the Chinese people on the train.  But it worked.  A guy behind me said, "I do," and before long he helped me figure out our tickets...sort of.  I figured we'd just show our tickets to a guard when we reached that stop and they'd point us in the right direction.
It all worked out in the end.  The guards had us get off the train, walk to our new cars, and re-board.  Most of the teachers were in the same car, but I was in my own, and Maddie was in her own.  Fortunately we spent most of the time sleeping, so it wasn't too lonely.

We arrived in Chengdu on a rainy afternoon and set out to find the bus to our hostel.  The instructions told us to get on bus 27 or 57 and to get off at the WouHouCi temple stop.  Sounds easy enough, right?  WRONG!  We got on bus 27 and realized rather rapidly that we would have no idea how to identify the right stop.  I asked a random guy on the bus where to get off.  He spoke enough English to let us know that we had 7 stops until we needed to get off.  7 stops later, we got off.

It was a rainy corner and nothing around us looked anything like a temple.  We decided to get back on the bus and try a few more stops down.  That ended up being a bad idea and we got off a few stops later to try and flag down a couple taxis. We got the first taxi with relative ease and sent four of the girls in that one with the hostel address and phone number (a couple guys nearby were nice enough to let the taxi driver borrow their phone so that he could call the hostel for directions).  Heather, Soren, and I waited behind for the next taxi.

Suddenly a bunch of people started to appear out of nowhere to steal our taxis.  It was still pouring and we were getting grumpy.  It seemed that every time we tried to flag down a taxi, someone else would sneak in and snag it.  Taking all of this into consideration, I feel no shame in in what happened next:  Soren and Heather were stationed up the street a ways and I was positioned by the corner.  After a few minutes a taxi started to pull up to drop people off.  I waved my arms in the air like a wild woman and managed to attract his attention.  He pulled up a few feet in front of me.  Then, some dude with a gigantic box in his arms made a bee-line straight for the taxi.  Soren hollered at me to get there before him, but I was already on top of it.  Just as the guy was reaching for the door handle, I braced my shoulder and aimed for the box.  You can imagine his surprise as a small white girl rammed into him to defend her taxi.  It was kind of awesome.  I felt a little bad afterwards, but seriously dude?  That was MY taxi.

When we all finally got to the hostel we were pretty pooped, so we set up our tour for the next day, ate dinner at the Café, and settled in for the night.  It was a cute hostel and we were all able to stay in the same room. 
The next day we went to see the Leshan Giant Buddha.  Never heard of it?  Neither had we, but it was amazing.  And there’s a cool story to go along with it: So the Buddha’s carved out of a cliff where the Minjiang, Dadu and Qingyi rivers meet. It was a really dangerous place for passing ships and resulted in many shipwrecks and deaths. In 713, a monk named Haitong started construction on the project in hopes that Buddha would bless the turbulent waters and make the passage safer for shipping vessels.  Funding for the project was cut and so Haitong gouged out his eyes to show people how serious he was about it.  Although it was a strange tactic, it worked and they commenced with construction.  But when Haitong died, all work on the Buddha stopped. It wasn’t until about 70 years later that the Buddha was finally completed.  The best part of the story is that the massive construction resulted in so much stone being removed from the cliff face and deposited into the river below that it altered the currents by the statue, making the waters safe for passing ships.  Praise to Buddha!  Awesome, right? To me, it shows just how much God loves his children, no matter who they worship. Just because Haitong wasn’t Christian, doesn’t mean he wasn’t inspired by God.

Getting into the spirit of things

A few of the Buddha

The Buddha from below

The ILP group and Buddha

We were able to set up a tour with the hostel to go see the Buddha, so we had our own private bus.  The Buddha was amazingly big and beautiful. There were many other Buddhas and writings carved into the walls. There were also many temples and towers to visit. Once we got our fill of hiking and taking pictures, we headed back to meet our bus driver.  He took us to a small restaurant for lunch and it had the best Kung Pow Chicken.  Seriously, I could’ve had 3 more plates of it.  On the ride back to Chengdu, the driver put Breaking Dawn: Part 2 in, so we watched and laughed as we drove back. 
That afternoon was spent at the WouHouCi temple and that night we went to the Opera!  Well…not a whole Opera…it was more of a variety show.  There was some Opera, slapstick, puppetry, hand shadows, clothes changing, and mask changing.  It was so cool!  And we got the same bus driver that took us to the Buddha, so we bonded with him a bit (he thought it was hilarious when Soren did aerobics with the Chinese ladies in the park).

At the WouHouCi Temple

At the Opera House with our bus driver

The next day was quite a debacle.  The plan was to go hike a mountain, but after losing our way, and getting on the wrong bus, and wandering around aimlessly, we decided to scrap it.  Instead, we visited a beautiful Tibetan shopping area for a while.  It was super cool, but we didn’t buy much there because it was expensive.  Soren and I broke off from everyone else for a while and found the main square of Chengdu.  It provided a beautiful view of the city and was just a nice place to be.  The square had two large fountains that were part of a bird’s eye view yin-yang.  But I have to say my favorite part of the square was the music.  I thought I recognized the first song from Kenny-G’s Christmas album, but since it wasn’t a very “Christmasy” song, I decided to let it slide. When the first song ended, the next one started up: “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose…”  Yup.  Definitely Kenny G’s Christmas album.  Well done, China.  Well done.

Brian! are you seeing this?? It's the Ocarina of time!

Soren in the square

Me and Mao

The Tibetan shopping area was a lot like Diagon Alley

That night the girls got massages and Soren and I went clubbing.  Oh yeah…clubbing in China.  Things were just opening when we arrived and we poked our heads into a few of the clubs: fancy, good music, lights, bar…but no dance floor.  We went there for the dancing!  One club had a pole, but I thought it unwise to let Soren near that because he probably would’ve discovered his inner pole dancer and given everyone a good show. We decided to wait an hour or so before actually staying in a club, so I got my nails done and Soren got a hair cut.  We ended up at “The New 88.”  I got Coconut Juice and Soren got a Sprite (livin’ on the edge).  Despite the lack of a dance floor, we found a little space to get our Night Club Two-Step on before we left.  Overall, it was just kind of fun to be there.

In the morning, we went to the Panda Reserve outside of Chengdu.  Now let me say something here: I’d never been a fan of Pandas.  I’d never seen what the big deal was.  They’re black and white bears…so what?  But seeing them so close up?  THEY ARE ADORABLE!  I’m obsessed with Pandas and I love them.  I want one.  In the next life, I will have a pet Giant Panda.  I will.  Mark my words.  

Soren and the Pandas

Isn't he so cute?

The rest of that day we wandered around Chengdu, looking for other things to do.  We found an awesome park full of tea houses where tons of people sat at tables playing Mah-jong.  There was also a small amusement park there where we did bumper cars, a carousel, and some kind of spinney ride.  It was a lovely time.

And that was pretty much it for Chengdu.  We had a 16 hour train ride back to Xi’an, where we spent a few more hours shopping, and then we had a 13 hour train ride back to Nanjing.  We were all very glad to be back home.  Travel is exhausting…plus all those hours standing and sitting caused my ankles to swell up to three times their normal size.  Yikes!

Saying goodbye to our hostel