Leshan's Buddha and a Healthy Sweat

Only a quick 2 hours away from downtown Chengdu is the city of Leshan. A very small, rural town that has only one reason for being on any map, being the home to the largest Buddha statue in the world. Sitting in the side of a cliff, it's over 230 feet tall and something that simply is unnecessarily huge but great. Rumor is the guy was built over 1200 years ago to safeguard ships traveling on the river that bisects the city he overlooks. Well, nowadays the only ships seen going by hold tourists taking pictures of what makes Leshan great.

The day started with taking a cab to the bus station at 830 in the morning (directly during rush hour) and hopping into the 920 bus to Leshan (going back through rush hour traffic again). When we finally pulled in at about 1130, we were ready to get things rolling. The trip started with the less-famous, well hidden, and equally impressive Laying Buddha.

From here we made our walk through a sort-of theme park of Buddhism. Decorated caves and temples were all along the way while incense filled the air. A few short minutes later we came across a huge flight of stairs with a small place to pray up top for those so inclined. My train of thought was, "I've come all the way from Florida to Leshan, China. I can at least walk up these stairs now that I'm here." And I'm glad I did. At the top I found chains to place a lock onto that is supposed to bring good luck to my family (you're welcome, guys). I chained it up, tossed the key on top of a much smaller Buddha than I had come to see, and kept on my way.

From here, it was an extremely hot and humid walk to the Giant Buddha - or Da Fu as it's known locally. By the time I walked up to the head of the Buddha I was already drenched in sweat, but I couldn't have been happier. This was actually something I had heard about before I came to China. I had seen it on TV and the internet. This guy was big.

Immediately when I saw the top of his head I really was able to put into proportion how huge this thing is. Carved directly into the side of the cliff, it sits overlooking the river and part of the more modern city. Starting at eye-level, you're able to descend stairs right next to him so that you can truly get a feel for how big he is. After winding down plenty of stairs and stopping for too many photo ops, we got to the base to look up all the way up. Standing in awe, this is what sat next to me...

And that about wrapped up the trip to Leshan. From there we got on the bus and headed back into Chengdu. I've noticed in the last couple months that living here has quite a bit of perks - one of them being that I can take only 10 hours out of my day to go visit the biggest Buddha in the world. Next perk, Xi'an and it's Terra Cotta Warriors.

Stone Forest, Ancient Town, and Not Wanting to Leave

This past week I took Friday off from class and hopped on the Thursday afternoon train heading south to Kunming in the Yunan Province. Our train left Chengdu at 1:30 in the afternoon and ended up pulling into Kunming at 8:30 the next morning. Needless to say it was a long trip. Here's the first installment into my attempts at video...



Getting into Kunming early in the morning gave us the whole day to get settled into the Hump Hostel and explore the city. After dropping our bags off and getting maps/info on the city we headed out the door into the heart of town. Kunming is another typical big Chinese city. It's nothing on the scale of Shanghai and Beijing but none-the-less still a mega city. The skies were their usual greyish hue and buildings did their best to be as tall as possible. There's a different feel to Kunming than Chengdu and Chongching though. I've started to notice that each city within China really does have its own distinctive personality, no matter how similar they may seem on paper.

We spent the majority of our time in Kunming exploring parks and pagodas, but what brought me here is what's known as the Stone Forest. About an hour and a half away outside of Kunming is Shilin, a small city with one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I find myself saying every couple of days, "Wow. I've never seen anything else like this before." And you'd expect that after thinking this 40 times in the past 6 weeks it would lose its meaning and excitement, but somehow I still get floored by so much here. The Stone Forest is literally just what it sounds like - huge stones jutting up to over 100 feet out of the ground for as far as you can see. Another UNESCO World Heritage Site (which we seem to keep visiting just by accident), the Stone Forest is grotesque, nasty, and absolutely gorgeous all at the same time. The rocks themselves are not the prettiest thing I've ever seen; but somehow when they are all together you can't help but to think about how beautiful it all is. This alone is reason enough to bring you to Kunming, or eastern China for that matter.



After our Saturday in the Shilin, Sunday we spent around the city again before we took the overnight bus from Kunming to Lijiang - famed to be one of the best cities to visit in SE China (and yet another UNESCO site). The 9 hour bus ride was a hell of an adventure. The bus was crammed with as many beds as possible, with mine about 5 and a half feet long. I decided to catch as much sleep as possible while on board since we'd be getting in a little before 6:00 in the morning and I didn't want to miss sunrise in this place. Just about every hour I was woken up from the bus taking a tight turn through the mountains and every time I peaked my head out the window we were about 5 feet from the side of the road, with no guard rail, and a drop so far down I couldn't tell you far it is. None-the-less we pulled into Lijiang safe and sound and right on time. After dropping our bags off I grabbed my camera and took to the Ancient Town. Not being a big city and with having hundreds of years of history behind it, Lijiang has a lot more charm than 99% of the cities in China.

The early morning in Lijiang is really the best time to catch the town. I was able to see the sun rise above the mountains surrounding the city and remove the fog from each alleyway and canal in the city while kids made their way to school and locals set up shop and cleaned up for another day. After winding my way through the "Venice of the Orient", I headed to the top of Sleeping Lion Hill for the best view of the city - both the Ancient Town and the New Town which sit right next to each other in perfect contrast. The view was everything I had heard it was going to be.



After grabbing lunch I went into a park at the edge of the Ancient Town to snag a view of the Black Dragon Mountain and the pool that is at the base of it. You can check out the view in the slideshow below.

From here we decided it was time to start drinking. We found a bar running happy hour and decided to drink some 5RMB (US ~ $.80) Tsingtao to really send off the weekend in good fashion. After a throwing some back and sipping on some baijiu (a Chinese liquor that tastes like rubbing alcohol) we were feeling good and surprisingly speaking some pretty good Chinese to the bartender. Then, in typical Chinese fashion, the bartender asked us to join her and her 4 friends for a free homemade dinner. Of course we could never turn down an opporutnity like this! So there's the three of us (a white kid, an Indian, and a Philipino who everybody thinks is Chinese) sitting down drunk for dinner with some Lijiang residents. The food was great and the time spent with them was even better.

We had to wake up very early on Tuesday morning to catch our flight back to Chengdu. The weekend was great and I'd only change one thing about it - the time I spent gone. In the next month I really hope I get back to Lijiang and use it as a hub for the treck through Tiger Leaping Gorge - a two day hike through some mountains surrounding the deepest land gorge in the world. So in the end - Lijiang, I hope to see you again soon.

A Tourist In My Own City

Last weekend was spent in Chengdu to see more of my summer home holds. Unfortunately we're slammed with work during the week which makes it pretty difficult to actually get out and do things throughout the city, so that means the weekends we have to make the most of. After a Friday consisting of class and a five hour language tutoring session, I was more than ready for a few days off. Waking up at the crack of noon on Saturday, we hurried off to Wuhou Temple - a glorified museum with the usual things found in such places. Maybe I'm just getting used to visiting temples, but the standout here for me was the gift shop. It's really cheap and has tons of fun little souvenirs (including a cartoon painting of a cow if you want it).

Afterward, we walked down the road for my second trip to Jinli St. Already a veteran of the experience, I wasn't phased this time by the Starbucks and TCBY right once you walk in (although I still hate it). Here we found out that Chengdu is currently running the 2nd Annual International Cultural Heritage Festival - Chengdu, China (I know, the Chinese have a way with words). But the benefit to all that is this - in Jinli's performance center (an open air area with a stage) they were holding traditional operas all week long. We decided to peek our heads in and stand in the back to watch a few minutes of the show. Immediately when we walked in the hostess asked us if we'd like to take a seat. We said yes, so we quickly were escorted to the front row in typical/ridiculous fashion. The seats we were just put in for free cost a cool 180RMB, and that's only the beginning. About 15 minutes later the show came to an end and we were asked to go up on stage and present the main actresses with their ceremonial gigantic bouquet of flowers. We got to shake hands and exchange the usual "nihao" with the whole cast. This is when the swarm of Chinese paparazzi runs up for the photo-op of the opera actors and whitie. I'm still waiting on pictures from this mess from a random Chinese guy who was obsessed with us.

Sunday was another early morning (woke up at noon). This day we took our second stab at going to Wenshou Monastery (it closed 10 minutes before we got there the day before; note - closes at 5pm). Good thing this place was well worth the extra effort. It was a beautiful getaway right in the heart of the city. There's something to be said about any place in this city that can take you away from the typical sounds and smells that linger around at all times. On top of that, it's just a great place to go see. While we were at the monastery there was an afternoon worship going on. It consisted of about 200 people (from young monks to old citizens) performing rituals inside the massive library they have. Also included is a peaceful park, multiple temples (of course), statues of everything holy, and a school for music and calligraphy. The place is absolutely worth any time you spend there.

Sunday night I finally went to the famed (by tourists) Sichuan Opera on Qintai Lu, right down the road from me. Samantha Brown (the 2nd love of my life) first introduced me to this show about a year ago and I've wanted to go ever since. I had heard mixed reviews from some of the other students around SWUFE but decided it's a must-do in Chengdu. The show absolutely didn't let me down. It was way better than I ever expected. It had it all - music (sounded more like a group of 3rd graders given crazy instruments, but still great), comedy (couldn't understand more than 10 words of it all), hand puppets (both one on a stick in the air and the shadow puppet variety), and what makes the show famous, the "face changers".

At the end of the weekend, I'm very happy that I have decided to stay in Chengdu and truly enjoy everything that this city has. Living in a city, it's easy to pass over all the great things that it has to offer. Going back and enjoying all those things makes me really happy about my decision to spend my summer in this great city.

Chongqing - City of Hospitality and Rats

After another week full of cramming in Chinese I was ready for my third vacation in China. Last weekend took me to Chongqing, famous for having a ton of people but not a ton to do.

Before coming here I had read from a bunch of places that the trains in China are hectic - people pushing their way on, you not having a seat, crowded, hot, etc. What I found last weekend is, yet again, don't believe what you hear about China. Yea, it was a little quick and confusing getting on the train, but nothing crazy. Once on we got our seats and had no problem. The ride to Chongqing was absolutely beautiful. It was about four hours of small cities, farmland, and rice fields carved into the sides of mountains. Really the best scenery possible for sitting in an uncomfortable chair while throwing back some cheap, warm beer.

Immediately upon arrival I was floored by how huge this city was. I thought Chengdu was big until I saw Chongqing. The skyscrapers go on for miles and miles on both sides of the Yangtze and Jialing Rivers, which combine right in the heart of the city. Our first night got us settled into our hostel and then immediately out on the town. We spent a few hours strolling through the pedestrian streets and sampling some food - the item for tonight was grilled tentacles. From here we went to the riverfront to try to get a better view of the city skyline. We decided to hop into a huge building to try to go to the top and get a look from a window. Once we got to the top all we saw were doors to condos. A little disappointed but also a little drunk, we knock on a random door to see if we can come in for a second to look out their window. Chinese hospitality once again came through. The woman who answered the door took us right in, served us tea and gave us some walnuts to munch on. The view was a little like this...

Turns out that the tea we were drinking was made by her husband's company. She recently relocated from Guangzhou and now lives in this penthouse in CQ. Afterwards we did some more walking through the city, only to see about 15 rats along the way. Of these, 14 we saw just scurrying through restaurant floors. The other one was simply dead on the floor of a restaurant. Needless to say I didn't eat anything the rest of the night.

Saturday we took a cable car across the Jialing River to get a daytime view of the city. The city looked impressive and dismal at the same time. It's a huge city but still has plenty of slummy areas and the "fog" there was 10x worse than Chengdu. From there we went to Arhat Temple, the main Buddhist temple in CQ. To be honest, it was nothing special. Then we hopped in a cab and went to the Three Gorges Museum, the Chongqing Museum, and The Great Hall of the People; all of which are in the same plaza. The museums were huge and I'm sure very informative if you know Chinese. But since I don't, it was instead about 2 hours of walking around and looking at poorly made figurines. The Great Hall of the People is something to the tune of a very fancy performance hall. Some world leaders have given speeches there and some of the greatest Chinese singers of the last decade have performed there (whoever they may be).

Saturday night we took a river cruise along the Yangtze to take a look at the lit up skyline at night. As you can see, it was pretty amazing.

After this we grabbed some food before hopping into another club for the night. The snacks of choice were pig snout, pig tail, and pig ears. Watch out Porky.

Sunday led us to Red Rock Village and Ciqikou. The former was not overly interesting. It was the site that the Chinese government had set up in 1945 during WWII to avoid the Japanese and where Mao lived for a couple of months. The latter was great. This is CQ's rendition of Jinli Street in Chengdu. The ancient style architecture, the street food, and tons of little souvenirs. The best part though is that it hadn't quite been ruined by Western culture yet. It was absolutely quite touristy, but in a way to appeal to the Chinese - so I totally loved it. Here I tried the Chinese version of a pig-in-a-blanket that was instead a crab-in-a-blanket. And not the fun little piece of crab meat with some breading around it. This was the entire crab - shell, claws and all. It was actually ridiculously good. I've definitely learned to not judge Chinese food by the way it looks. Usually the crazier it is, the better it tastes.


Our last day was spent walking around the neighborhoods surrounding our hostel. There's a great little market area that spans a couple of streets where you get to see the real life of the people of CQ. There all kinds of cheap rip-off items and cages crammed full of live chickens, ducks, rabbits and pigeons. We witnessed first-hand how the Chinese choose their chickens and get their meat. I'll leave that explanation for another time.

And that was Chongqing. Different than Chengdu and great in its own way, but I'm glad to be back "home".