Days 97, 98, 99, and 100: Being above the Clouds At Mt Emei

As it was the tomb sweeping holiday on Tuesday, we had Monday and Tuesday off, and our adventure continued. The tomb sweeping holiday was recently made a goverment holiday (on 4/4, because 4 sounds like death in Chinese), and it was meant for people to honor their ancestors, so all of China had it off.

We got up early, and headed out of the hotel to catch the bus to the first destination. There was a van that took the people from our hotel on the tour to the bus stop first. At the bus stop, to my surprise, there were hot food vendors (it must have been a regular bus stop), but I opted not to get anything as I had bought things at the bakery last night for breakfast.

We took a couple hours, with the lady in charge of the tour talking about Chengdu in Chinese, which made me a bit sad, because I like hearing about local history, but I could only understand what Celia translated for me. I gave up, and Celia let me listen to music on her headphones for a little bit to drown out the noise until she stopped.

A couple hours later, we were at our first destination. It was the largest Buddhist statue in the world. It was a giant head of Buddha carved in the rock formations in the midst of a river, surrounded by a city. Will told Celia (and Celia told Sean and I) the story of how there was a building that was taller than the Buddha statue, with its top two floors above it. The locals, however, had a superstition, and no one would buy any space on those two floors.

The grassy islands surrounding the Buddha statue

We got to the gate of the statue area, and we were instructed to stay with the tour group by following the girl who had a panda on a long stick in front of us. They handed out tickets to all the groups within the larger group, and we headed in.

There were lots of carvings along the way, both representing Buddha, and purely decorative.

 

What does this even mean? Not to jump?

This said, roughly, according to Suri, that "You should leave inspired to be a better person"

When we came upon the Buddha head, it was absolutely massive, and I was absolutely astonished at how it was completed 1,300 years ago, as it would still be a challenge today!

From the ground level, you can see its hair

For a sense of its size, look at the people in the upper left corner

Fountain for people to wash their hands in

Sacred bell that people rubbed the characters for good luck (including myself)

There was a little temple area with some decorative wood carvings, incense burning, and lots of decorative Buddha statues in all sorts of poses that was very cool, and very authentic.

 There was also a small cave, which we decided to explore. It wasn't as large as I thought, which was actually understandable, once I read the sign, and realized that it was just a small cave for the monk to live inside of. The monk in question was the master designer of the Buddha statue, and was in mediation for years.

The monk who designed it all

Below are a few more pictures from the temple area.

I couldn't resist taking a selfie with Buddha after Sean had taken one

 Before we headed out, we stopped several times, and one of the stops was to watch a Buddhist prayer ritual. I was fascinated, and so were many people in the crowd. The Chinese people with us (Celia, Robert, Suri, and Will), said that it wasn't in Chinese, so they couldn't understand it either. I deduced that it was in Sanskrit from some of the clues they gave me. It was interesting that the music was all on a speaker, and they chanted to it in a cyclical pattern.

We watched for a while, and then headed further down for another talk from the tour guide. At the end, we got a restroom break, Celia talked to her about letting us go where we wanted on the mountain, rather than sticking with the group.

 After the stop at the Buddhist temple, we headed to lunch. We were walking for a while, and I figured that we were going to the restaurant, but we ended up getting on the bus again. I was hungry right at that moment, and ate the rest of the stuff I had bought at the bakery the day before.

We got to the restaurant where we were supposed to eat "special" food, only to find out that it was extremely crowded, and we had to take the bus another hour to another restaurant. We had chicken soup with different types of parts in it, pumpkin,  beef dishes, pork dishes, etc. We kept hearing a rooster crowing outside, and one of the things we talked about was how different cultures did animal noises differently. In America, we think the rooster sounds like "cock-a-doodle-doo", but in China, they say "ca-ca-caw-cou!". We also discussed Sean's birthday, as earlier on the bus, he apologized for having his "awful birthday luck" rub off on us, when we didn't even know before he said that that it was his birthday!

Huge squash as we headed out

Eventually, after another couple hours in the bus, we were at Mt Emei. We went through the security checkpoint, and we went into the gate after receiving our tickets from our tour guide.

I figured that this sign applied to me, so I went on in

We went in, and we were directed to be at the hotel by around 6:30 for dinner, so we made our way up and down to get there. There were lots of stairs, and although I didn't get as tired as quickly as I did on Mt Huashan, I still got out of breath, to my chagrin.

It was interesting seeing an old schoolhouse on the mountain. These kids literally had to do what your grandparents said they had to do, climb forever, and walk several miles to get to school! Fortunately, it appeared out of use, so it hadn't been used for years.

Seeing the sign, Will asked me if I knew who this was. It sounded familiar, so I thought it was the chancellor that Nixon had communicated with before his infamous ping pong tournament. I was right, and Will was very impressed with me.

There was also an abundance of roosters (and hens, although I didn't see the females at first) on this mountain. Part of it was probably because of some of the houses on the mountain, but part of them were wild.

We got to the top of the area, and found a little festival area of sorts, with food and other vendors. None of us had a desire to look around though, so we headed upwards.

At the top, I was exhausted, and took off my larger sweater to try to conserve energy, but we were stopped by another gate that claimed that we needed to pay more to go through. After a few conversations with other people (in Chinese, of course, and on the part of the Chinese among us, not myself), we realized that we had to go back down to the intersection by the festival area and go the other way.

At some point, we were at a high point with a scenic view, and I saw that a vendor was selling butterfly bookmarks. They appeared to have real butterflies in them, and they were gorgeous. I asked Will to ask if they were real, and he said that they were, and that they were 3 for 10 quai. I bought a few, and we moved on.

Soon, we came upon a Buddhist temple, and I was happy to take a short break from climbing. We went inside, admiring the statues, and there were many people praying and/or burning incense.

He looks a bit startled, doesn't he?

Celia and the lion happy together

Celia praying towards the temple

We ran into the tour guide again, and she told us the best way to get around in order to get back on time. She claimed it was only about an hour away. She also told us about a special tree, and we went inside to find this tree.

We found it quickly, and it was one of the trees with the wish ribbons, like the ones on Mt Emei. We took lots and lots of pictures by it. Celia has a bad habit of making strange faces in pictures, so we took a lot more because of that.

Walking a bit further, we saw a very famous tree, one of the oldest trees on the mountain. I took a few pictures due to Celia's request.

At a point, we saw a beautiful pond, one that rivaled the one at the national park we thought about going to, and lots of people were drawing the scenery (better than I could myself).

Chairs that people were carried around the mountain in (you can get anything for a price)

Celia said that there were free pictures over on the other side, and we headed over to get one. They gave me half of a keychain, and I held onto it to get the free picture later on. When we found the place to pick it up later, it was an little shop with both keychains and full sized prints. The prints were 20 quai, and I thought about it, and decided to buy it for my mom, and Celia did the same.

We walked on further, and saw this gorgeous blue pond that was unlike anything I've ever seen before. Will pointed out the tadpoles, and I taught him the English word for it. We stayed there for a bit, taking pictures, and kept on going.

There was yet another pond (predictable, I know, but still gorgeous), and we made our way around to get toward the hotel, making our way past lots of souvenir shops to do so.

Pretty cute ticket control officer there

When we were almost at the hotel, I saw this gorgeous rose, and I absolutely had to get a picture. I had to climb a bit in the mud, but Will helped me, and now you get to see the fruits of my labor!

bridge across to the hotel

We were close to the hotel, but there were several hotels, and we wandered around for a bit, confused, until Robert called the travel agent, and we discovered which one we were at. We checked in (getting bracelets as room keys), and set our stuff down before going to dinner.

At dinner, they kept bringing out lots of dishes, and one that I hadn't had before was a sort of vegetable that everyone else (including the Chinese among us) hated! So, needless to say, I got to eat as much as I wanted. It had a strange, stringy sort of texture, and a mixture between a radish and grassy sort of taste. I didn't mind it, so I wasn't sure why everyone else hated it so much.

After dinner, Celia was anxious to get into the hot tub, so we all ran back to our rooms (with her leading the way), and we changed into our swimsuits, wearing the robes over it, and the hotel provided shoes to the hot tub. Suri had two phone pool protectors, and she offered me one, so I took it.

We alternated between the different naturally heated pools, with different temperature, and taking advantage of the different features in each pool, with showers in some, and large seats in others. We stayed for about an hour, frolicking and taking way too many pictures, but loving it!

We headed back to our hotel rooms, having to find someone else's shoes to wear, because someone else took ours! I took a quick shower to clean myself off, and went to sleep, since we had an early day in the morning.

We got up around 6, going for breakfast around 6:30, and I got a variety of things, including the vegetables that only I had liked the previous night. I discovered that my phone camera had water damage, but the others reassured me it should resolve itself quickly. We had to run out of the hotel to catch the van up to where we were catching a bus, and I had to stash the bun and part of my egg in a napkin.

We took the quick van to another van that took two hours to get where we needed to go, dropping our luggage off first at another hotel. There was a short restroom break halfway up, and half of the stalls didn't have doors (in typical third-world China style).

Before going far, Celia and Will stopped at this lady who was selling bamboo walking sticks, and Celia bought me one for two quai. It really was a life saver as we were going up the mountain.

After we were dropped off at the top of the mountain, there was a short hike, and we were above the clouds! It was absolutely gorgeous, and we took too many pictures to count.

After a while, we had lost, and subsequently caught up to the others, and the tour guide said that from here, we could either take the cable car or hike up a few kilometers the rest of the way. Pablo, Sean, Celia, and I chose to hike, while Will, Robert, and Suri chose to take the cable car.

What does this even mean?

As we headed up, I kept falling behind, but I was fine with it, as I was breathing heavily, and it was somewhat embarrassing for the others to see. They would stop every once in a while, and I would find them there, and take a break with them. I used the fact that I was alone most of the time to stop and take the occasional picture as well.

At one point, we were all together, and we saw a hubbub around a tree. I thought it was the famed monkeys of the mountain, but it turned out to be Chinese chipmunks! I was astonished that they were all but posing for the camera, and a lot of people gathered around to take pictures.

This guy is definitely posing here

And again

We continued on our way, almost at the top at this point.

The rolling layers of clouds heralded that we were almost there!

In the distance, we saw a huge, tall, golden Buddhist statue, signifying this mountain's importance to the Buddhist religion. There were also elephant statues heralding the way up.

 Finally, we reached the top, still having not found the others, but we shrugged it off, and posed with the amazing rolling clouds that seemed to go on forever! There were a couple rocks that we climbed on, trying to get the best pictures (and to get some of them, we had to climb over the fence!)

The best picture, in my opinion

Also a great picture!

While we were taking all these pictures, we later found out that the others were taking copious amounts of pictures as well (which are below).

 More pictures from our own adventures are below. Before heading back, we also wandered by a temple toward the top of the mountain, and took a few pictures, before absolutely having to head back.

If you can't tell, he used to be a swimmer

When we were heading back, we found that some of the monkeys were out! We finally got to see some. We admired them for a moment, but as we were already late, we had to keep moving. (Although we found out that the others got to see them up close after getting off the cable car.....).

We got back to the cable car stop, and paid to take it back down. It was a private car, much like the one at Mt Huashan, which was nice. I had to leave my bamboo stick, which was a bit disappointing, but it had served me well.

We were the last ones to get there for lunch, and we were assigned with all the other latecomers to eat. All the Chinese strangers were absolutely silent while they ate, while we talked to each other about the food, and about the hike. I thought their silence was an interesting cultural difference (or maybe they were just tired.....I wouldn't blame them, being exhausted myself). Some of the dishes that we tried included pumpkin (again, to my and Pablo's delight), pig's foot (which was rather gelatinous), a fish dish with spices, and spicy pork.

They quickly herded us out to the bus, and we took the small bus down the mountain for about an hour to get our suitcases. It was a bit of a rush, and we were able to get our stuff and head on our way eventually.

We headed back to Chengdu, with the tour guide talking to us again, and it going in one ear and out the other. I decided to check my email, and found some bad news on something I had applied for (although I got good news on something else the next day). But very frustrated, I could no longer concentrate on my book, and I went to sleep. I woke up eventually, confused as to why the bus was not moving. Apparently we were in a traffic jam, with no end in sight.

We were trying to get to the train, but it was several hours from then, so we figured we'd be ok. However, we were stuck in traffic a few more hours, and we were going back and forth from a little bit too conveniently placed restroom, the fruit stand by it, and the convenience store. After a bit, we found out that the traffic jam was them trying to prevent too many people from getting on the highway. We all agreed that was a ridiculous reason, but we could do nothing but wait.

Eventually, we were able to get through the gates, but we were seriously delayed at that point. We got stopped a couple more times, and by the time we got to Chengdu, we had missed our train. I had borrowed someone's battery, and I gave it back to him. We headed to a nearby mall to freshen up and catch the subway to the train station.

At the train station, it turned out that the last train for the night had already sold its last ticket, we couldn't get a refund, and we were in a bind, because most of us had classes the next day to be at. A man with a large van came up to us, offering to drive us all to Chong Qing for the same price as the train, and get us there within 3 hours. Without another choice, we took him up on his offer, as well as another lady. He asked where we should be dropped off, and argued with the Chinese people in our group about dropping some of them off at Shapingba. We all just wanted to go home, so we were seriously annoyed. Eventually, he gave in, and stalked off in a huff. A few minutes later, he came back with yet another person (even though the van was already too crowded), and drove off.

3 hours later, we were in Chong Qing, and Sean, Will, and I were dropped off in Daxuecheng. However, we weren't dropped off anywhere near campus, and it was dead out, since it was already past midnight, so we didn't know what to do. By the grace of God, a taxi rolled by, and Will flagged it down. We got back to Huxi Gardens, and I went to sleep around 1:30 am.

Wednesday morning started off with me bleary-eyed from lack of sleep. I went to statics, reviewing the powerpoint during class, and teaching a few problems, and then I sat in on the C++ lecture to get a few more hours for the week. Afterwards, I went to lunch with Celia, Dom, Will, Nick (who regularly sits in on the class), and Amanda (who is in the class). I grabbed a sandwich that I could eat quickly, and I sat at the table with Celia and Amanda, discussing things at home, and introducing them to fuzzy logic, before I had to run out and catch the bus to go to Campus A for heat transfer.

 I went to class, took notes, and headed back. There wasn't a meeting that night, so I decided to go straight to dinner, and wandered around, looking for something new. A lady called out to me, and I decided to try the food at her booth. It was pretty interesting, because it was out of a metal bucket that was supposed to still keep the chicken and rice meal warm. The lady came over to me at some point, trying to ask me something, and even wrote it down, and I couldn't understand, to my embarrassment. I gave her my phone to use the translator, having to switch it to the Chinese keyboard for her, and she asked me how I liked the food. I smiled at her, and gave her a thumbs up, making her day.

 Walking out of the cafeteria, after having put my leftovers in a bowl, I ran into Heather, and talked with her a bit. She asked what I had done over the previous weekend, and I told her. She was thoroughly impressed, and said that she was going somewhere over the next weekend (since they had Friday off for sports day). I said that I was going to grade, and we promised to meet up for dinner before I went back to the US in about 3 weeks.

I headed to the TA office working on reviewing statics powerpoints, and worked on philosophy homework during my office hour. I was surprised that I had a student, Paul, come in for help with not just one class, but both Manufacturing and Statics. I had the Statics midterms, and he was able to review his exam as well.

After my office hour, I was too exhausted to do anything else, so I went home to get some rest.

Thursday morning started off with Models lecture, and then from there, I headed back to the apartment, watched some manufacturing processes videos, then headed back to campus to try to print off the midterms for manufacturing, taking lots of pictures of the beautiful day along the way.

 After getting it printed off, I went to the office hour for models, and talked with Dom, working on philosophy homework as well. Afterwards, it was such a beautiful day that I didn't want to go home yet, and I decided to go shopping at Sunny Block.

I wandered between the different clothes shops, eventually deciding on getting shorts, a dress that I came back to after thoughtful consideration, and a skirt. The prices were so expensive here, I was shocked. It was full price western sort of prices, and as I never pay full price back home, I tried to avoid doing that here. I got a couple snacks to eat as well, both from outside in little booths outside restaurants, and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

A friend told me I look like a magical girl (from anime) in this dress

The skirt is new, the shirt is very old

When I sat down to eat, though, a little dog kept bothering me for food, and as cute as it was, I had to keep turning it away. Its owners kept calling it back, and when I was only holding scraps in my bowl, I asked them if it was ok for me to give them to him, and they shook their heads no. At that point, a giant golden retriever puppy (and yes, he was a puppy, because I could tell he was young), did the same thing, but I was pretty much finished anyway.

I headed home after getting a new Totoro water bottle to replace the one that shattered and some money out of the ATM, satisfied with a great night. After getting home, I graded some models labs, and headed to sleep.

-Zoe