After a “working vacation” with my classes from Qinghua, I was ready for a vacation from teaching. Thankfully, because of Labor Day, I had Thursday through Tuesday off. However, I only had one class on the previous Wednesday so I decided to find a sub for that class so that I could travel with two friends to Chengdu, Sichuan and Xi’an, Shaanxi.
Chengdu 成都 – Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province. Chengdu means “city capital” and Sichuan means “four rivers”. Chengdu is known for it’s teahouses and pandas!
Our flight from Beijing was Tuesday evening. I don’t know why I have developed a hatred for flying. I used to love flying. Maybe it is because I have recently had some really terrible flights. Why is it that you have to fly to get somewhere quickly? 🙂 We landed in Chengdu late in the night and found a taxi to our hostel. The hostel was amazing! They only had the beds for that night so we had to find ourselves a different hostel for our remaining nights.
Le Shan乐山
Our first day in and around Chengdu was spent outside of the city about 2 hours. We first went to Le Shan乐山, which literally means “happy mountain”. It was a beautiful bus ride out to Le Shan city. The hills were covered with tea. I thought maybe it was rice at first but then we asked someone what it was. I didn’t take any photos in the bus. You’ll have to take my word for it. We arrived in Le Shan city and had to transfer to a local bus to take us the Le Shan giant buddha. Ever since I saw the picture in the Lonely Planet, I wanted to see this. 🙂 We had a little climb before we got to the top of the buddha’s head. (Not like the climb up Taishan)
Le Shan Giant Buddha - he was carved right in the mountain. If you look closely at the top of the picture you can see people to get a size comparison.
This is from the other direction. After seeing this side of him, we ventured down the staircase to get a view of him from below.
This was his foot. Notice the size of the people next to it.
The sad part of all of this was that people were actually w*rshiping this statue at the bottom. I don’t understand how someone could put their faith in a stone statue. This is the thing that strikes me the most about the temples and other various places of w*rship here. The artwork is beautiful but it’s purpose is very sad.
A few other things struck me about Chengdu and the surrounding areas. First, it was so warm there. Beijing was having some terrible cold spell or something so it was nice to be in warmer weather. It was also very green. This country is full of contradictions. There is a drought in the north but flooding in the south. The trees and other greenery were very beautiful! Below is a picture of part of Le Shan. I couldn’t resist taking a photo! 🙂
I loved how tropical it was. It was so warm and green. I could live there!
I was having a great time photographing HIS creation! What a blessing! 🙂
Emeishan 峨嵋山
From Le Shan we headed to Emeishan which was about 40 minutes away by bus. Emeishan was also very beautiful. When we got off the bus we were bombarded by people trying to sell us tickets back to Chengdu. This was incredibly hilarious and my roommate, who’s Chinese is much better than mine, was having fun talking to all the people. We decided to just wander around for a while and then catch a bus later on. We found our way down a little river walk. It was lovely. 🙂
One view of the river. There were numerous little restaurants, teahouses, etc. along the river. I would love to come back here and stay for a couple days!
Even the sidewalk was green (from the moss). It was difficult to get used to the humidity.
This waterfall is definitely man-made. They didn't even try to make it look real. Behind it was a big wall! 🙂 It was still nice to stand next to it and cool off.
This one looks a little less man-made. We actually had to climb up behind it to see the tubes/etc. It was still very beautiful. The rest of the surroundings were very pretty.
We encountered some interesting people while were climbing around. One lady wanted to sell us beads. She was super cute and told us she was over 80 years old. Then this little old man (I thought they were working together) wanted us to buy his oranges. 🙂 After we hiked around a bit, we went back to the town to catch the bus. The bus ride home was brutal. What was supposed to take an hour and a half ended up taking almost three hours. We don’t really know why either. Traffic wasn’t bad and there was minimal stopping. We made it back to the hostel to collect our things so that we could get to our other hostel.
The next morning we decided to do a bike tour of the city with a group from our first night’s hostel. Our ‘tour guide’ Joe was terrible. Most of the time he wasn’t in the lead and we didn’t know where to go. But he did have a pretty sweet outfit on. We bike all around Chengdu along the river and through the city. He took us to a seafood market where we found this:
This man was skinning snakes. The snakes were still alive and trying to climb out of the blue bin. Gross.
They had their jaws taped shut. 🙂 They weren't that big.
On the bike ride were the three of us, two Israeli men, one Israeli woman, a guy from Texas and another guy from Maryland. It was a very interesting group of people. Most of the time we didn’t know where we were going and we had to stop numerous times to get bikes fixed for some reason or another. 🙂 It was definitely a very “China” day. Joe also took us past the largest statue of Mao in China. Below is a picture of Joe.
This is Joe. He was our 'tour guide' through the city. Check out that awesome outfit! He was a really nice guy. Just not a very good guide.
After the biking tour of the city, we went to a really beautiful temple in the city. There was much more green space in this temple than any other temple I have been to.
Part of the garden of the temple.
The next morning we found ourselves on a minibus with a woman from Australia. It was the three of us and this woman. We don’t actually know who she was talking to but we do know that she wouldn’t stop talking. Thankfully, the ride was only about 40 minutes or so. We arrived at the Giant Panda breeding and research center. Our minibus driver was also the one who ‘led’ us through the center. It was very beautiful there and taking pictures of the pandas was addicting. They were so cuddly looking.
"Love me, don't bother me" This was at the panda breeding and research center. 🙂
This guy was taking a bath or something. He may have just been splashing around in the little pool. Nevertheless, he was cute.
Mmmmm.... Wouldn't you love to munch on bamboo all day long? I guess if it was in a pile right next to you and you didn't have to move to get it you might! 🙂
It looks like they are playing. Or maybe they are fighting over the bamboo. Either way, it's pretty cute.
It was so funny to watch them.
They're actually much more flexible than you would think. I think this one was putting on a show for us.
I think most of their day is spent lying around and eating bamboo.
These two babies were having a fight. At the end of the fight, one of them ended up at the bottom of the hill. I also saw another one fall off of it's wooden structure. They seem so clumsy. 🙂
Hmmm..... It's not? I am fairly certain I would never eat a panda but many wild animals taste very delicious. 🙂
This lake was called "Swan Lake" hehe 🙂
I specifically like #1 "Don't spit", #2 "Don't jump the queue", #3 "Don't step on the grassland", #6 "Don't force foreign tourists to take photos", and #7 "Do not utter dirty words"! 🙂 🙂
And so ends our time in Chengdu. That afternoon, we got on a flight (super bumpy-not my favorite flight) to Xi’an, home of the terracotta army and also home of my dear friend Michael who was one of my students last semester.
Xi’an 西安
Michael came to the airport to pick us up. It was pretty great to not have to find a bus or take a taxi. The traffic in Xi’an was crazy and way worse than Beijing! It took us just over an hour to get to Michael’s apartment. I was hanging on for dear life to the handle above the door when Michael said, “Take it easy! Keep your heart inside your body!” 🙂 Ha! Hilarious. His English is actually really good. I think it would have been easier for me to keep my heart ‘inside my body’ had there not been 3.5-4 lanes of traffic occupying 3 lanes. It’s really every car for itself here in China. But I think Xi’an takes it to the extreme. I always laugh at the drivers who park on the sidewalks here in Beijing or the drivers who honk at the people walking on the sideWALKS. But now I know, Michael is one of those drivers. And part of the reason is because there is literally nowhere else to put the cars. Crazy.
After we dropped our stuff off in his AMAZING apartment (very modern and so not China), he took us into the part of the city that is enclosed by the old city wall. It was very beautiful down there. I neglected to bring my camera with me that evening. Sad. We saw the Drum Tower, Bell Tower, and the Muslim area. Michael treated us to a delicious supper in the Muslim district. After walking around for a bit, we decided to try to find a specific wood carver’s shop. He carves wood and then uses the relief for a painting. I bought one of his paintings and another painting by one of his students. He and his wife were so nice. I actually felt bad bargaining with them.
We made it back to Michael’s apartment later that night and he told us that he and his wife would stay with his parents. What?!? Okay? So, we had his apartment to ourselves.
The next morning the plan was to meet Michael at the south gate of the old city wall. We were going to bike around the city wall (14 km) with him. We got to the south gate and sent him a message. To which he responded: “go without me. I can’t get there before noon.” Okay. So we climbed to the top of the wall, rented some bikes and were on our way. A little way into our journey around the wall we decided to see how fast we could ride around the wall. The rental fee was for 100 minutes of biking. Surely we could bike 14 kilometers in 100 minutes or less. So after we decided that we didn’t stop. It was super bumpy on top of the wall. But, we made it all the way around the wall in 49 minutes! We even got one “加油!” on the way. (加油 literally means ‘add oil’ but it’s a way to cheer someone on).
This man tried to sell me one of those instruments. I almost bought one but then decided they were too much.
After we were finished with that escapade we found ourselves walking through the incredibly crowded markets. It was, after all, a holiday. We met Michael for lunch as planned and then visited a Mosque in the Muslim area. The mosque was definitely not worth the Y25 it cost to get in. It’s bad when all temples/mosques/religious buildings start to look the same. Hmmm… This was an active one. Also very sad to see. One good thing that came from visiting the mosque was the addition of a few Chinglish signs to my collection. 🙂
Michael then drove us to a completely different part of town to see the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda (I love the names for things) and these really awesome fountains! The fountains were set to music and the show lasted about 20 minutes. It was really cool. I wish we could have seen it at night. They were especially nice to stand near because the temperature in Xi’an got to 97.7 that day! Whoa! It wasn’t even that warm in Chengdu, which is further south.
We were standing near this pool when I noticed these hoses pointing in all different directions. I asked Michael if he thought we should move or not. He said we should be fine. About three minutes later everyone started to run to the other side! 🙂
The above picture was taken before the fountain show started. They had many ‘warning’ signs that we were about to get wet.
We'll call this flat area a 'tier'. There were probably 5-7 tiers just like this in addition to the lower large pool and the one in the previous picture. The show was huge and crazy.
I’ll compare China and America once again. Think back to the crazy New Year’s fireworks. Chinese fireworks were crazy-huge and out of control. The Chinese definitely know how to do things in large quantities (I mean, come on, 20% of the world’s population lives here–large quantity? Yes.) But I would take an American firework show any day simply because it is more beautiful. Then there’s this fountain show. Quantity? Yes, for sure! It was huge and crazy. Quality? It was good, but I’ve seen better. The most entertaining part of this was watching the young men gang up on their buddies and drag them out into the water. That, and the little girl who was behind me posing for her father’s pictures. I’m not actually sure which one (the girl or the father) wanted her to be out there…
After the fountains we went back to Michael’s apartment and then found a really good restaurant near there. We ate the Xi’an specialty before heading back to his apartment to hang out and wait for Mrs. Michael to come home. I was excited to meet his wife. I had only heard about her from him. She didn’t get off work until really late and then had to wait a long time to take a bus home. So we passed the time by looking at their wedding photos. Chinese wedding photos = hilarious! Michael’s did not disappoint! There’s something about fake poses, rented dresses, and super-photoshopped photos that make a person smile! I also love how newlywed couples (Michael and his wife have been married for one year) have incredibly large photos of themselves hanging everywhere in their apartment! After Michael and his wife left, we tried to watch Kung Fu Panda (since we had been to the pandas and can fully appreciate the very accurate Chinese culture in the movie) but the movie didn’t play on Michael’s computer. You would think that in a sweet awesome apartment with a ginormous TV, this man would have a DVD player to go with it. Nope. That’s okay. I needed my sleep anyway.
The next morning we got up to head to see the terracotta warriors. Michael picked us up in his dad’s SUV (not his typical red Beetle) because he thought it would be more comfortable for the long ride. We made it to the location of the terracotta army and it was a madhouse. There were people everywhere! This was definitely not the time to be at this particular tourist location. We zoomed through the museum part and also through the warrior part. It was neat to see the pieces but this wasn’t my favorite place to visit. I know people say that not visiting the terracotta warriors when you are in Xi’an is like not going to the Great Wall when you are in Beijing. I felt obligated to go. I took a few photos but all in all it was ‘just so-so’. 🙂 Below are some photos.
Pieces of the warriors that have not been put together yet
A few 'more complete' warriors
I'm not sure all of the horses are different. It was cool to see all of the different warriors though.
There were three different exhibition halls. This was the largest hall with the most complete warriors. This hall also had the most people. It was kind of a pain but Michael and I had fun trying to take photos! 🙂
After seeing the army, we met another one of my students (from this semester) for lunch. We had a nice lunch and then went back to Michael’s apartment to rest a bit. The rest of the afternoon was spent getting our things together and napping. Michael then took us to a restaurant before sending us off on our overnight train back to Beijing. This was my first time having a sleeper. It was awesome! I definitely want to take the train again!
HE has blessed me again with safe travels! Enjoy!
