As a quick note to those who skim: if you want to see the unexpected experience (it's cool!), be sure to read the last paragraph.
After the unreasonably long train which originated in Xi'an, I finally arrived in Chengdu at 5:30am, one day later than I was supposed to. I was exhausted and spent the morning sleeping before starting my travels around the city.
In case you want to follow this description with pictures, here is the updated Chengdu album.
My first stop in Chengdu was the main shopping area on a street called Chunxi Lu. Since I had no need to purchase any brand name apparel, I went straight to lunch. Wanting to sample the local Sichuan (spicy) flavor, I ordered a Kung Pao Chicken (Gong Bao Ji Ding), and replaced the chicken with shrip. The food was delicious. However, I was more than a little bothered to discover, when the bill arrived, that replacing chicken with shrimp increased the price of the meal by 71% - not a trivial amount. Just another reminder that if I let my guard down for 5 minutes in this country, I end up paying for it.
With my belly full and my wallet lightened, I took a walk across the center of town, stopping to take some pictures of the giant Mao statue in the center of town and ultimately arriving in People's Park. It was Saturday afternoon, and the park was just crazy! There was a swarm of people who tended to congregate around separate performances that were all going on simultaneously. At one point, to my left there was an old man doing a comical set of motions that I would describe as a "shoulder dance" - his shoulders went back and forth, up and down, and side to side as he danced around the ring formed by his crowd of onlookers; to my right (and competing with his dance music) was a woman performing a solo song. She was certainly singing her heart out, so much so that the poor tiny speakers connected to her microphone buzzed discordantly as she belted out her notes. Further to the right was another crowd surrounding what seemed like a family act who that was performing some form of a variety show while waving Chinese flags. In between these crowds, people danced, exercised and practiced martial arts. The videos in my Chengdu album attempt to capture the crazyness of this whole experience.
I caught the bus home from the near the park after enjoying the scene. Thanks to the travel, the heat and the full day of walking around, I was pretty beat, and after booking a seat on a bus to Leshan for the next morning, I went to bed.
The trip to Leshan began simply enough. I was sharing a bus with two dutch people, two Americans and one Chinese girl who was dating the other male American. We arrived after about 2.5 hours on bumpy roads and walked into the park, which turned out to be a Buddha sculpture theme park of sorts. From what I could tell, only two large Buddhas and about 2,000 small Buddhas were original to that location. However, it seems that an interesting decision was made: to re-sculpt copies of more than 20 other Buddha statues from around China and place them all in this park. As we walked through the caves and pathways looking at the various statues, my travel companions and I all agreed that it was quite odd seeing real ancient carved Buddhas interspersed between many copies, which could not have been carved more than 50 years ago.
The highlight of the whole Leshan experience, though, was the Dafu (Great Buddha). And it was a GREAT Buddha! Absolutely huge! Take a look at the pictures if you want an idea of how big it was (there is one of me next to his foot; that will give some good scale). Seeing the Great Buddha was amazing, but unfortunately the experience was rendered bittersweet thanks to the fact that the line to walk down near the Great Buddha's feet lasted nearly 1.5 hours - and the day was hot and humid with a temp that was most likely above 90 degrees ferenheit. Nonetheless, our party of six made the most of the situation, entertaining ourselves and taking lots of pictures.
After departing the park and eating a delicious and spicy Sichuan style lunch, we made are way back to Chengdu. We arrived, took much needed showers and then Tina (the Chinese girl) introduced me and the other two Americans to a new type of Hot Pot. For those who don't know, Hot Pot is a special style of cooking where a giant pot is filled with water, oils, spices, and other flavors. To this brew you add additional food that you order, usually meats, fish, vegetables, tofu, and mushrooms. This particular type of Hot Pot was the Nanjing style, and in addition to all of the normal elements, rice was added. I don't know if it was the spices, the rice; or if I was especially hungry, tired, or just drunk, but this Hot Pot was by far the best that I have had during my years in China. Thus, returning to my hostel extremely content - and tired from the day - I went to bed.
The next and final day in Chengdu (though I will stop their again as I leave the mountains) was a simple day of sightseeing and food. I started out in an area called Wuhouci, visiting a shopping street full of chuan(r)s, or what I like to call "stick food," because it is just food on a stick. I ate some delicious squid and a strange pickled vegetable sandwich. After that, I took a brief trip to a temple that was built to honor the heroes from the Three Kingdoms period in Chinese History. Following that, I relaxed for a few hours in the park surrounding the cottage of the Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu. The pictures will do a better job than me of explaining what both of these areas included, so you can check them out if you want. Following those two trips, I had a delicious Sichuan style (extremely spicy!) Hot Pot dinner with a couple of people who I had met in Xi'an before heading back to my hostel to get some sleep.
The next day was a full-day bus ride from Chengdu to Kangding. Pictures and a full description of Kangding will be up later.
Before this post is done, I have to introduce one more photo album that is a result of pure coincidence (a quick thanks to my buddy Alvaro for alerting me to the situation). As luck would have it, while I was in Kangding, the city was in the narrow band of earth that experienced a full solar eclipse! The sky wasn't perfectly clear, but I still got some good shots; the 25 pictures with captions (located here) will guide you through the whole experience, which lasted about 2 hours. Hope you enjoy it!
No comments:
Post a Comment