From Emei Mountain

A Traditional Chinese Wedding For Enliven

2009-06-20T02:22:00.002-07:00

It was finally time for our FAO (Foreign Affairs Office) representative to have her wedding. She had spent the last week working on getting our visas taken care of. Seems Sichuan Province has a very strict age limit on foreign teachers. We had already been turned down but the University was pushing for my contract very hard. Ms. Enliven, our FAO rep, was spearheading the effort to get a new visa for us. She now appears to have been successful, even though she was scheduled to have her wedding today. An amazing bit of effort on her part.

Actually, she and her husband had been officially married for about three months. This was the official ceremony for family and friends. Enliven had decided to have a traditional ceremony and even claimed she had decided this to give us foreigners a bit of Chinese culture. Knowing her, I would not doubt that she had set this thing up for our benefit as well as her family's. It was greatly appreciated by all of us foreigners!

We were told to meet the husband's people at the China Bank building at 1000 so Sunee and I were getting ready when I heard Chinese music coming our way. I immediately ran outside on the balcony and saw a troop of musicians, flag bearers and the husband being carried down the hill. The time was 0917. Sunee and I hurried and finished getting ready. As we were just about to leave, the marriage procession was coming back up the hill. We ran out and followed them back up the hill. The parade made a right turn across from the China Bank building and stopped in front of an apartment building. It seems the groom had been carried down the hill to pick up his bride and was now they were being deposited into their new home. She was carried into the apartment complex by the groom. I talked with Tom and found out the whole thing had started an hour early but we had not really missed anything.

The wedding starts almost without us. The troopers are headed down the hill to pick up the bride.

Half an hour and the bride and groom come back out, mount up (bride in sedan chair and husband in an open chair carried by four to six red dressed bearers) and we head off toward the Emei Hotsprings Hotel. Fortunately, Sunee and I caught a ride over to the hotel. It would be another forty minutes or so before the procession would arrive to the hotel, so we make ourselves comfortable with some Emei Mountain green tea.

Back up the hill to the couple's apartment.

Flag bearers.

Tom poses with two of his students who were among the troopers in the wedding procession.

A large group of musicians, carriers and flag bearers made up the procession.

The beautiful (and now empty) sedan chair for the bride.

One of the musicians with his sheng. This is supposed to be the father of the modern harmonica. I plan to get one before we leave China.

Time to head out to the hotel. Here the bride leaves the apartment.

Of course, the groom also gets to be carried to the hotel along with his bride.

Outside the Emei Hotsprings Hotel

As we sat in the lounge, we met the new couples family. Ms. Enliven's father was especially interesting as he was a noted "qi gong" practitioner. We asked him a few questions and then for the next half hour or so, listened to him as he explained what "qi gong" was all about. One could not help but really like this gentleman from Beijing.

Ms. Enliven's mother and father visit with us as we wait for the wedding procession to arrive.

A famous "qi gong" expert, Ms. Enliven's gladly shared his knowledge with us as we waited in comfort

At around 1130, the wedding procession arrived and we ran out to get some pictures. We were now very familiar with Chinese weddings as we were given candies and offered cigarettes. The groom and bride officially enter the hotel then disappear into the back, preparing for the upcoming events of ceremony and banquet. We returned to our lounge and Ms. Enliven's father continued to tell us about "qi gong." He impressed both Sunee and I greatly.

At around noon, we were all called into the banquet room so the ceremony could begin. The afternoon was spent watching a traditional Chinese wedding ceremony and eating some really great dishes. It was a very rewarding afternoon and very beautiful.

The troopers arrive with the bride and groom on their backs. It took about 45 minutes for them to make the trip from the China Bank building to the hotel.

The groom is first delivered to the door of the hotel

Then the bride is united with her groom and they both enter the hotel

After the bride and groom arrive we still had a few minutes before the ceremony so I had this picture taken with the hard-working troopers.

The ceremony started at around noon or a little after. One of the first things I noticed was this apple on the floor leading up to the platform.

Also we saw this wood burning box aflame a few meters behind the apple. Seems this has a symbolic meaning which I must remember to look up. Dean Jiang tried to explain it but I really did not understand.

The bride awaits his her sedan chair. She waited quite awhile for the ceremony to start.

As we waited for things to start, our tables were full of great looking appetizers for our enjoyment. Here we have some spicy green beans.

The appetizers on the lazy susan ready for tasting.

Nice sliced pieces of beef.

This turned out to be some spicy fish slivers. I did not care for them as they had too many small bones.

Pickled radishes made into a beautiful flower. They were as good as they looked.

Plainly sliced cucumbers (I think) in a really hot but subtle sauce. These were great.

The ceremony starts and the bride is helped out of here sedan chair and guided up to join her waiting groom. Notice her face is completely covered. Very traditional.

The bride and groom as the ceremony starts.

Eventually the groom lifts the veil to reveal the lovely bride and they take a seat before the audience.

A lot of stuff goes on during this very long ceremony. Here the couple kneels in respect of their in-laws and eventually offer them tea.

A group shot of the foreigners with Ms. Enliven's parents and, of course, her husband.

The beautiful bride near the end of the ceremony. Hundreds of pictures were taken of various friends and relations.

Never mess with a Chinese bride!

All things must come to an end. Here two little Chinese girls bid us farewell.

Actually we went upstairs to play some mahjong. Since neither Sunee nor I really understand the game, it did not take us long to give up on it. Soon, very soon we will get serious and learn to play.

My Teachers' Class Graduation

2009-06-18T02:22:00.000-07:00

Thursday at 1600 (4 PM), I went to the official graduation ceremony for the teachers who had attended the first English training class at SW Jiaotong University. We met in a large conference room in Number Four Building, Second Floor. Several University administrators were present as was our own Dean Jiang.

Basically we discussed the successes and critiqued the course. The teachers all gave glowing reports and it now appears that this course will be offered again next semester.

When we were approached about this class at the War Luncheon (see earlier post), I was apprehensive about the class. First, to be in front of a bunch of teachers is a teacher's worst nightmare. Imagine the possibility of being evaluated every second.

Secondly, I did not know the English levels of the teachers. To what level does one teach? To the advanced students, the middle students or the lower students. There is no simple answer and thus I was a bit worried.

As it turned out, the teachers and I got along really great and ended up working together to reach our goals. I had a great time and look forward to more of the same next semester.

These are some of the pictures taken during the certificate ceremony

This is the teachers group posing for a shot in front of one of the famous professors at Jiaoda. A very impressive group of teachers.

An Academic Trip To Crouching Tiger Temple

2009-05-24T07:26:00.000-07:00

We scheduled a visit to Fuhu Temple for a couple of my students who were to write a travel journal article about the temple. Ms. Winter and Ms. Lorry were supposed to show up at around 1430 Sunday afternoon but were able to make it a little after 1500 due to class commitments. We had called Yanmao to coordinate the trip so eveything was set.

We took a bus to Emei Mountain, getting off at the little village nearest Fuhu Temple. The temple is another fifteen minute walk up the mountain.

Ms. Lorry, Ms. Winter and Sunee all walk casually up the mountain to the temple. It was a great day to be out and about on the mountain.

Yanmao greets us and invites us in to the meeting room for tea and interviews. Here she introduces the concepts behind being a nun on Emei Mountain ant Fuhu Temple.

Sunee relaxes and listens intently to the lecture on being a nun.

Lorry also listens with interest.

Ms Winter as well.

Both Ms. Winter and Ms. Lorry asked questions and took detailed notes about what Yanmao was telling them.

Here Yanmao shows a book written about the nunneries on Emei Mountain. It is written in both Chinese and English. She was kind enough to loan us the book for a few weeks.

After more than an hour of interviews and getting to know Buddhism from a nun's prospective, Yanmao invited us to share a meal with her. She took us outside to observe the ceremony that occurred prior to sharing food.

After prayers the nuns walked and chanted around the base of their living quarters.

Chanting and walking is part of the Pure Land Buddhist sects rituals.

A closer view of the rituals.

Nuns' living quarters.

Ms. Lorry and Ms. Winter with Yanmao in respectful pose.

Ms. Winter asked a question about prayers and Yanmao immediately took us to the small prayer room to give instructions on the proper way to show respect and pray. This was an interesting demonstration and practical experience for us all.

After a vegetarian lunch and on the way out, Ms. Winter meets and greets a cat that is cared for by the nuns. As I was taking additional pictures of the cat, one of the nuns invited me back to see the cat's family.

Ms. Lorry holds one of the temple cat's kittens, a fluff of white cotton.

Mother cat is not happy.

Yanmao bids us a fond farewell as we go explore the Fuhu Temple.

In the book Yanmao had loaned us, I read about some rare trees in the courtyard of the temple. Here the students pose by what we thought was a rare tree only to find out later it was not so rare.

In this building is the 13th century pagoda which celebrates the meeting of thousands of Buddhist across China during that period.

Can't help taking this beautiful stand in front of the bronze pagoda.

Ms. Lorry and Ms. Winter pose in front of one of the oldest relics in the temple, the 13th Century bronze pagoda.

Sunee visits with some of the nuns in front of the Hall of 500 Arhats. They were very delightful.

One of the huge Buddha images inside the Hall of 500 Arhats.

Ms. Lorry poses with her "lucky" Arhat. She found one that she liked then added her age to its number and found the corresponding sum. This was supposed to represent her lucky arhat.

I pose in the doorway of the Hall of 500 Arhats. Not too often I get my picture taken for this blog so figured I better take advantage.

This is one of the real rare trees the book mentioned. Its pedigree goes back to the time of the dinosaurs and is often called dinosaur food.

A spider makes his web on dinosaur food. Can this be considered an art photo? You judge.

My final photo of Fuhu Temple from above the main courtyard. Absolutely beautiful!

Our visit to the temple was a resounding success. The two students had a great time and learned a lot. Now let's see how well they write their article for the class.

Gap Guys' Farewell Dinner

2009-05-20T18:04:00.000-07:00

It is the last week for the Gap Guys at Southwest Jiaotong University so we got together for a final dinner. At first, it was going to be on Thursday, May 21, but then it was changed to Wednesday. I had my teacher's class on Wednesday so we started the dinner at 5:30 with a promise that I could teach my class even if I may be a bit late.

Unfortunately, someone did not make it clear to Tom that the dinner had been changed from Thursday to Wednesday and he was no where to be found. Later, I found out that he was doing his normal Wednesday afternoon thing at the gym. We all felt bad that we could not find Tom.

This is the restaurant we held the Gap Guys Final Dinner. The ladies our front were friendly but a bit shy. Of course, I spoke to them in English as if they all understood every word I said. Got a feeling they all wanted to do a smack down on me so I immediately greeted them in Chinese. Smack downs hurt!

As we made our way up the stairs to our feasting room we saw two lion's heads stuck on the wall. These were the real things from those lion dances we see all the time. Obviously for good luck and good profit.

Our feasting room was cozy but what caught our eyes were the beautiful yellow and blue dragon place settings. I had seen some similar to these in the tea district in Chengdu and lusted after them. They were very stunning against the black of the table top. The table was a huge round "hot pot" style table with the outer area able to revolve around the stationary hot pot in the middle.

On the way to the restaurant, we asked Zoe about the type of food we were going to have. When she said "hot pot" we all showed the same kind of disappointment. None of us really liked hot pot that much.

During the course of Zoe's ordering, we found out the style would not really be the Sichuan hot pot we had come to . . . well, not like so much. The broth would be light with chicken and the most mushrooms anyone in the room had ever seen.

With the ordering done, Zoe clued us in on exactly what we would be eating and it did sound pretty good. No Sichuan hot pot this evening.

Along with the basic clear (sort of) soup came an interesting array of snacks or appetizers. On the far right just in the picture are some hot spicy peanuts. Next was some strange popcorn kinda things (more like cracked corn). Then we got some thinly sliced and very nice beef . Going around the table to the left were the typical Sichuan "kimchi-like" radishes and then a bunch of green onions for the soup. The stuff was very Tom delicious!

John, into his professional photographer mode, takes pictures of everything in sight. When he first arrived to Emei, he barely took a picture. Now he is Mr. Photo.

The chicken and the mushrooms are "dumped" into the heated broth and in a few minutes we start eating all the mushrooms in the world. They were very good and hearty.

Robert and Sophie share some interesting stories about the Gap Guys visit to our university. It was probably pretty rare for Gappers like Dave and John to get to spend time at a university since they were newly minted HS grads and not yet in college. I thought their time here was absolutely off the charts for us, our students and them. They were the same age as most of the students they interacted with so it was much more enjoyable for everyone involved.

Enliven (Eleven) does her normal helpful stuff to insure we all had a great time with plenty to eat. She helps Zoe take care of all us Lao Wai while we are at the university.

Lots of 'shrooms! Lots of food. Lots of fun!

These were some sweet sticky rice cakes that were so good we ordered another dish of them.

Here is our group outside the restaurant after having a great meal. We all got to say good bye to our Gap Guys. There plan was to travel to Xian on Friday via train and then on to Beijing. From Beijing they would fly to Kunming and then travel to Dali, Lijiang and maybe Shangri-la. They would then return to Emei to pick up their suitcases Sunee helped them buy and then it is off to Thailand and eventually England and their colleges. It was a real pleasure having them visit us, help us, party with us these last three months. Wish they could have stayed longer.

A Saturday Chinese Wedding Luncheon

2009-05-16T02:15:00.001-07:00

We were invited to attend our apartment's managers who live downstairs on the first floor. Their job is to insure our apartment is in good order and maintain the utilities and repairs. Their daughter was getting married. Robert volunteered to take us to the hotel where the reception was being held. We also were accompanied by Gap Guy Ivan of Leshan Vocational and Technology College fame. The party started at around 1100 so off we went.

Here is the hotel where the reception was held. It is a famous Emei Mountain Hot Springs hotel and very nice. It is located only a few minutes from our apartment but we had to wait on the main road for Ivan to arrive via taxi from the bus station. He arrived, we stuffed him in the car and we went to the reception. The reception started at around 1100 and we arrived just in time.

Robert, Sunee and Ivan (along with me the photographer) arrive ready for a good time.

Here we have the bride and groom along with the brides mother and father, our apartment managers. We were greeted with candy and other goodies including cigarettes.

Bride and Groom greeting all their guests.

I had as many people as I could get in the picture as we were about to enter the main part of the hotel.

Cigarettes anyone? A very Chinese tradition.

We sat out in the garden area for a while having tea and then went to the dining area for the official reception. This lady, a friend of Robert, visited with us as we waited for the reception to begin in the dining area. She was lovely and very hospitable.

Ivan was hungry. Ivan is always hungry as you can tell from his looks as we were waiting for things to start.

Sunee checks out the candies we were given as gifts as we arrived to the hotel. They were cute.

The three of us (Ivan, Sunee and I) build a pyramid with our candy packages. Cute! We obviously had a few minutes to entertain ourselves while we waited for the party to begin.

The party begins with fireworks. As the bride and groom walked toward the stage, all kinds of fireworks went off along the way. This one was the last just before they reached the stage to begin the ceremony. This wedding appeared to be almost entirely Western in dress and style. Obviously the fireworks was a Chinese twist.

Strange situation here where this little girl recited the vows and the couple repeated them. Never saw that in Western Culture. The little girl was definitely cute, though.

Another shot of the little girl reading the vows and the couple repeating them. Notice the picture of the couple in the background. Matches well, huh?

The lighting of the candles.

The pouring of the champaign and then the toast. Very Western, indeed.

More fireworks go off as the couple finishes the vows and celebrate their wedding. This was a Western-style wedding with only a few Chinese things thrown in. The food was fairly good and the company was fun. It was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon at Emei. We wish the couple happiness and a long profitable relationship. We just have too much fun here at Emei Mountain!

Trip To Baogua Temple To Meet The Abbot (May 14)

2009-05-14T23:19:00.000-07:00

We set up our first visit with the monk from Baogua Temple we had met at Xiao Lin's pharmacy last weekend. We went to meet him at 1000 along with the Gap Guys. As we started to walk to the temple, we decided to take a van instead since it was nearing 1000. Good thing we did as the usual way we walk to the temple was completely blocked with new construction. The van driver tried to go that way but had to turn around and take the long way. We arrived to the Temple right at 1000. We called Monk Sin and he came to get us.

Here we are waiting for Monk Sin to come get us. The place was medium busy so we had no problem going.

Visiting the Supreme Abbot of Emeishan

As we walked into the front courtyard of the Temple, Monk Sin led us to a small building on the right hand side. There we had the great privilege of meeting Abbot Tongyang, the Supreme Abbot of Emei Mountain. According to Monk Sin, he is 98. According to the monk who was his assistant, the Supreme Abbot is over 110. The internet had him as 102 years old. No question that he is old.

Another group shot with Monk Sin and the Supreme Abbot.

Sunee presents the Supreme Abbot with a gift from Thailand. They are coasters for tea. He seemed to really appreciate the gift.

Sunee explains what the gift is and about the Thai elephants on each one. Dave, of course, is busy recording the event.

The Supreme Abbot presents Dave with prayer beads and shows him how to use them.

I even get prayer beads from the Supreme Abbot. I kept trying to put them on my wrists but he insisted that I use them right away as in NOW.

John gets his prayer beads.

The Supreme Abbot demonstrates how to correctly use the prayer beads.

The Supreme Abbot of Emei Mountain is reported to be well over 100 years old.

When the Supreme Abbot was talking with Sunee, he wanted to know if I beat her. She said no but that she beats me. At over 100 years old, the Abbot still had a great sense of humor.

Visiting Baogua Temple

With our exciting visit with the Supreme Abbot over, we were invited to have lunch at the temple. It was served at 1130 so we had a little over an hour to visit other parts of the temple. The hour was well spent.

In the back of the room where we had visited with the Abbot were three Buddha images. They all great for photo ops. Here is an up-close head view of one of them.

Another close-up of one of the images.

A full frontal view of the Buddha image on the far left.

This image with the Buddha on an elephant stood on the far right.

After we left the Abbot, we checked out the dining area which was just around the corner. Here I find a bunch of chopsticks ready to use in the upcoming lunch.

One of two doorways leading into the giant dining hall where we would be having our lunch.

First courtyard upon entering Baogua Temple.

This was taken in the second courtyard where I found these giant candles burning brightly.

Incense sticks in the second courtyard incense burner. These were actually taken by John.

The giant fish in the second courtyard. Sunee thought it would be a good idea to drum it like she had seen a monk do. She was immediately reprimanded for her actions. Guess only monks can do the drumming. Here John and Dave check out the coloring of the fish.

This is a great shot from John in the second courtyard.

Guard dogs. Guard dogs. They are everywhere around the Temple.

Last time I was here, I saw all the paper mache figures over on the left courtyard of the temple. Sunee would not let me take pictures because they are for dead people. John got this one and it turned out really well.

Dave asked Sunee several questions about the area and things in the courtyards. Sunee relates her experiences of Buddhism and points out common things between Thailand and China.

John takes another great picture of the discussion in the third courtyard area between Sunee and Dave.

This doorway, tourist forbidden, off to the right in the back of the first major building. The reds were very brilliant.

I have taken several pictures of the fences at the top of the stairs leading to the middle building. These fences are obviously very old. Song Dynasty maybe?

Sunee at the back of the first major building. A beautiful table and huge mural add to the interest of the area.

John took this picture inside the commercial area of the temple. This Buddha is for sale if anyone is interested.

A Vegetarian Lunch

At 1130 we walked back over to the dining area and with around 50 or 60 other pilgrims had a great vegetarian lunch. The organization was well established so there was no waiting to get our vittles. They were well worth the wait.

Sunee starts things off by getting us all some rice to eat.

Our vegetarian lunch served by the Temple. Plenty of vegetables and plenty of rice.

Dave tries some of the vegetables we were served. The tofu was especially "Tom delicious."

After lunch, we had to clean up our dishes so they could be placed in the modern dish water in the kitchen. The water was very hot on the side Sunee and the Gap Guys were using.

A huge ceramic mural of Emei Mountain showing all the temples and the various geological points. This thing was in the dining room area and was really big. With this we come to the end of our wonderful visit to Baogua Temple. This is the headquarters for all the monks on Emeishan and usually the first temple to be visited when one comes to Emei Mountain.

English Culture Week: Debate Night

2009-05-14T23:18:00.000-07:00

It is debate competition time for the English Culture Week. Not my favorite but I was, once again, asked (along with the Gap Guys) to judge the competition. Hey, it is always fun to get involved in anything to do with English!

The head dude, the Master of Ceremony, the big monitor turned out to be none other than Mr. Yao. What a great job he did in making sure everything went smoothly.

The Foreign Language Department had made it to the finals and was represented by Giselle, Craig, Killua and Amelia. A nightmare for anyone who dares to compete against them.

Craig, in his usual overwhelming command of the English language, makes a "head breaking" statement in defense of the groups position.

Killua does her own "vulcan mind meld" as she destroys the opposition's stated position. Killua used to talk 180 MPH in English when I first met her two years ago. She has slowed down a bit and hovers (forcing herself) at around 120 MPH. I figure by the time she graduates she will be able to have people keep up with her at a more normal 60 MPH. Slackers will never be able to run with her, though!

From the audience, Daniel (a brilliant linguist in his own right) asks a question to the two opposing sides.

And the winners are, of course, our own Foreign Language Department. The number two guy on the opposing team (first on the left) did 90% of the talking for the team so we gave him the best debater award. Actually, the competition was not really close as the Foreign Language Department had stacked the team with some real "English monsters." Great evening of competition.

English Culture Week: Drama Night

2009-05-11T09:11:00.000-07:00

Welcome to another night of drama sponsored by the Annual English Culture Week. The last two weeks saw many dramas competing for the privilege of performing during the English Culture Week. The six finalist were selected and entered into the final competition on Monday, May 11. Here they are with the results.

The Prince And The Pauper

The first play was called The Prince And The Beggar. I was unsure exactly what it was about but within a few minutes knew what it was. It was a Chinese version of the all-time favorite - The Prince And The Pauper. Same story: bored prince looks for excitement so he changes places with a common beggar so he can taste the outside world.

The start of the night's program introduced the main players for each drama. Here we have the prince and the pauper (beggar).

The prince was bored so he changes places with a pauper. The pauper likes being the prince so he sends out his guards to kill all the paupers. The story runs for a while with the real prince suffering a lot and is finally brought in by one of the servants to confront the fake prince.

The king comes in and cannot tell who is who so he questions both of these "princes."

Finally, the king makes the two princes submit to a body check because the real prince has a birthmark on his . . . Well, you get the idea. The real prince is restored to his rightful place.

And the pauper is dragged away to be done with. The play was a bit overdone but it did have some interesting twists - Chinese style

Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs

How about a Chinese Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This play seems to be a favorite among the students.

The evil queen who reeks of beauty, thinks of beauty and demands beauty.

The queen checks out her beauty with the magic mirror "on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" Of course, the mirror tells her she is beautiful but Snow White is much more beautiful. The queen decides to do Snow White in so she can be the most beautiful.

Here she is telling her assassin to take Snow White and kill her immediately.

The assassin finds Snow White but is overwhelmed with her beauty and cannot kill her. This part is really funny because Snow White is ugly with a capital 'U".

Instead of killing Snow White, the assassin kills a dear and with Snow White's help, he cuts out the heart and takes it back for the queen to see he has done the dastardly deed she had told him to do.

Snow White runs away into the forest and comes across a tiny house. Tired of running she, of course, falls asleep on the couch.

Hi ho. Hi ho. The Seven Dwarfs show up. There are only six because one is attending college at Southwest Jiaotong University. They adopt Snow White and all is well for now.

The queen finds out that Snow White is alive thanks to her magic mirror. She takes it upon herself to do Snow White in herself. She dresses up as an old lady and sells Snow White a poisoned banana. Bam! Snow White hits the deck and is out cold.

Of course, her prince comes by looking for a good time.

He sees the down and out Snow White, falls in love and kisses her to bring her back to life.

They get married and Snow White carries him off into the sunset or something like that. The guy who played Snow White made the whole drama. He had a great time and made everyone laugh.

Journey To The West

This drama I did not figure out until the very end. It is the classical story by the same name except the drama here was called A Chinese Odyssey. I see this story all the time in series form on TV. The Monk, the Monkey King, a pig and another guy are traveling to the west in China on their way to India.

During the introduction, these two came out dressed beautifully. Again, I was clueless until very late into the drama.

The monkey in yellow seems to be a bad guy or lazy guy or something. He also has several girlfriends and a wife, or so it seemed.

The wife catches him in the act and . . . Lucky for the monkey that he is a smooth talker. The English was also hard to follow.

The monk shows up and tries to reform the monkey and invites him along on his journey. Most of the story is about how the monkey refused and continued in his bad ways.

I am not sure what happens, but something happened to change the monkey and he leaves everything behind to find that monk.

He finds the monk and changes his life with the monk's help.

He officially becomes the monkey king.

And then it is off to India to pick up some Buddhist books to bring back to China. The English was weak and the story was boring. Other than that the drama was ok.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Shakespeare's dramas are hard even for native English speakers. This was a daring try at doing one of Shakespeare's weirdest (IMHO) plays. They never quite got it right but the costumes were great and the effort was high.

Introducing the main players.

This guy played the perfect Puck.

Someone was in love with someone who was in love with someone else who was in love with the first someone. Well, something like that. It was truly mixed up

While falling asleep in the forest after chasing each other there, someone gets sprinkled with magic dust by Puck. She awakes and finds she is in love with someone but not the first someone but someone else.

Confused by someone who was in love with someone else the first someone finds he has been sprinkled with dust so he is in love with that someone else. Hey, it was very confusing!

In the end, everyone who was supposed to be in love got together and they all lived happily ever after, I think.

Too much Shakespeare destroys one's sense of humor. Can you imagine the language these students had to change to make it understandable?

Sister Act

This is drama comes from the movie of the same name. I think it was starring Whoopi Goldberg. Mostly students from Class 3 Sophomores. I watched them practice before the presentation and the director - Lucy - was a serious slave-driver. In the end, her efforts paid off as this was, by far, the slickest and most professional drama by a long ways. The only reason it came in second and not first was its weak storyline. The costumes were perfect as was the singing and everything else.

Mr. Pete and Ms. Grace acted as the voices for the introduction of the play and followed along with commentaries as to what was going on. They also played bit parts in the action.

Mary Clare is a nun who moves to a new nunnery. There she is unconventional in her outlook on life. Stated earlier but without much background, she was really not a nun but a pro singer who had gotten in trouble with the Mafia and is now hiding out. Again, weak story line because it really was not brought out that clearly. Ms. Alicia played one of the nuns who was influenced by Mary's evil and sinful ways.

This is the nunnery choir. Basically they sucked for want of a better word.

Mary and two of her innocents sneak out and have a great time at a local bar. Yeh, like nuns go to local bars!

Mother Superior (Ms. Marian) is furious with the actions of Mary and her followers and starts to cause some problems.

But Mary takes over the choir and changes them from "suck" to really great. This gets all the nuns behind her and the choir is very successful.

Mary (as played by the director, Ms. Lucy) is unconventional but a brilliant singer and performer and she works miracles with the choir.

The Choir.

Mary conducting a beautiful performance by the choir. Even Mother Superior is impressed.

More music. More conducting. A visual success if there ever was one.

The nuns are happy working and singing and doing their thing.

More working and singing and cleaning up the nunnery.

Mother Superior here is definitely happy with the progress both of her nuns and the choir.

A brilliant performance.

The nuns listening in on the scolding of Mary by Mother Superior.

And they all live happily ever after. Well the nuns did but we are not sure what really happens to Mary.

Slick is the best word to describe this drama. The dancing was perfectly choreographed. The acting was super and Lucy won best female actor. Also, check out the costumes. Absolutely are work of art. Now if only it could have had a better story line.

Beauty And The Beast

The winning drama! The best actor! A magnificent performance! This was from the fairy tale by the same name and it was well-directed and carried out. There was no question as to which of the six dramas was the winner. Everyone in the auditorium realized this as the play unfolded.

The Beast, as played by Mr. Yao, and The Beauty, as played by Ms. Cecilia, are introduced along with the key players from the other five dramas. It was not too long ago that Mr. Yao had approached me concerning his "poor English." Both my wife and I assured him that his English was easily understood and all he needed was more confidence. Do believe this week proved our advice was true. Not only did Mr. Yao win the best actor award, he also was the main man at the following evening's English week debate, came in second in the dubbing competition and was the translator for the Vice President at the English Week closing. An impressive performance all week placed Mr. Yao in the university's elite speakers of English.

Ms. Cecilia played the beautiful and yet innocent Ms. Bella. Looks are not deceiving.

When I saw this guy come on stage as the bad guy, I did not recognize him and had to ask who he was. This is our very own James from our Junior class. He made a great bad guy.

The bad guy had evil designs on The Beauty and her innocence.

The Beauty was a good student, always carrying a textbook around to read. No need for such things, according to the bad guy. His future wife will not need education!

Beauty's father is captured while walking in the forest bad a monster, a beast of fierce temperament. Get out. Run away. The fathers begs his daughter to leave before the evil beast returns.
The Beast! Once a handsome prince who made the mistake of not giving charity to a passing beggar. The beggar was a witch who saw the selfishness in the prince and turned him into the awful beast. He is trapped forever in his own selfishness as an ugly unwanted monster beast.

The story of this poor but evil creature is told by one of his servants who refuse to give up on him.

The Beauty talks The Beast into exchanging her for her father, against her father's wishes. She now is a captive of the beast and this was their first dinner together. The Beast, obviously taken by her charms treats her as his princess. The Beauty is not impressed and eventually escapes into the surrounding forest.

Lost in the forest, The Beauty is scared and helpless.

Saved at last, The Beauty thanks here saviors only to find out the truth.

They are all evil GANGSTERS as Mr. Jack, the director, yells for everyone to here. He is another bad guy who is interested only in The Beauty's charms.

Captured once more but this time by the bad gangsters who have evil plans, she is taken away.

Before the gangsters get out of the forest with their prize, they meet The Beast who saves The Beauty.

In the meantime, The Beauty's father hires the other bad guy to free his daughter. The Beauty is free thanks to The Beast. The bad guy takes this opportunity to let his evil intentions known and to double cross the father.

The Beast once more comes to the rescue but is mortally wounded by the defeated bad guy. he lays dying in the arms of The Beast.

Love in The Beast's heart breaks the spell of witch and he emerges as the handsome prince once more.

The handsome prince, Giselle, and The Beauty pose for a picture.

The entire crew of The Beauty and The Beast pose for a group picture.

I am asked to comment on all the plays and so I comment on all the plays. This seems to be my job in any competition. I love it, of course.

The evening wrap of comments followed by the finishing of the evenings competition. Another great evening of fun at Southwest Jiaotong University - Emei Branch.

Sunrise on Wawu Mountain and LiuJiang Ancient City (May 3)

2009-05-05T04:58:00.000-07:00

I, like one of the "older" FBI agents in the movie The Rock, have to get up two or three times at night. The place I must move to rapidly was many meters away. Fortunately, growing up as a country boy in Oklahoma, I discovered at an early age the concept of a tree. A tree was not far from the door of our accomodations. Quick trip out, quick trip in. Was it cold!

Sunee and I both did not sleep well because when we moved a little, the cold outside came under the warm blankets. We were on top of a very high mountain and this is what we called an "adventure!"

At around 0530, one of our fellow sojourners along the next wall came by and woke us up. Well, he tried first to wake Dave and Ivan but with no luck so he woke me up. Time to get ready and see the sunrise! It was cold but it was also the reason we had put up with this pain so we got up. In so doing, I began the slow anguished and unappreciated attempt to awaken our Gap Guys.

Ivan got up with little coaxing. Dave was emphatic on his lack of love for cold and total love for sleep. A kick here and a bang there and I was able to coax him into a semi-awakened state. Here you see the results of my considerable talent at getting the Gap Guys sort of up and about.

Our two female companions also had difficulty with the concept of cold and early. Mia was able to become unattached to her blankets a lot quicker than Zoe. Both, however, took some serious coaxing to get up.

The Marvels of the WaWu Sunrise

Beautiful sunrise. It lasted for about half an hour and we all took many photos in hopes of capturing the truth of what we were watching. The above are but a few of the more interesting shots I took of the sunrise over Wawu Mountain. Ok, ok, I did sandwich a couple of shots together using Photoshop. There is no lie in any of the pictures, maybe just a bit of fudging.

Sunee, tired and hungry, still enjoyed the sunrise.

Here is an interesting picture of four of the sunrise watchers posing for a sunrise picture. Notice how Ms. Mia's eyes are closed. I showed her the picture and accused her of always having her eyes closed. Was this ethnic or what?

This is the next photo I took in which she proves the other picture had nothing to do with her ethnic background. All in good fun. All in good fun.

In between taking pictures of the sunrise, I spent some digital space taking pictures of our group with the sunrise in the background.

Do these guys look tired to you? Looks are not deceiving.

Finally, I got Sunee to take a picture so that I could prove that I, too, had enjoyed the Wawu Sunrise Party.

Group shot (taken by Sunee) just as the Wawu Sunrise Party was finishing up. Even us older guys can still have fun.

It felt pretty good to have made it up to the top of this mountain, weathered the cold, got up early and enjoyed the sunrise. Here I show my satisfaction in my genuine PLA overcoat.

This shot was taken to the right of the actual sun with some very unique mountains way off in the distance. Very beautiful as the sun disappears behind the clouds above.

Hunger makes people try to eat just about anything.

The sunrise had been great but it was still chilly so we gathered around the fire that was till going from the previous night and visited with a few of the people who had watched the sunrise with us. This little girl got very shy as I tried to take her picture. She was fine until the camera came out then she tried to run away.

One final pose and the Wawu Sunrise Adventure ends. It is time we thought about getting back down the mountain.

I had to return my PLA overcoat and then we headed back down the mountain. The Gap Guys, Sunee and I were cold and did not feel like looking at anything else. Mia and Zoe decided to walk over to see the waterfall and the Taoist temple. Mia especially wanted to see the waterfall so we separated, we went back to the lift and they went on their jaunt to see beauty. We decided to meet in the ancient town of Liujiang about three hours away. Here Sunee starts her trek back down to the lift.

It is around 8 a.m. and the lift is up and running (or rather down and running). We make it to the bottom in fine shape and immediately get a car to take us back to the entrance. I took some more pictures of the trip, but they were the same as the ones I took coming up. Imagine that!

At the entrance, Sunee met this older lady selling some steamed bamboo shoots. As is Sunee's policy, she stops to buy some to help the lady out. Happens everyday in China.

This is the ugliest guard dog I have ever seen so I took a picture of it. Ugly for real.

Wawu town is small with not much to see except the landscape. Across from the bus station were these buildings. There might have been more but I could not see anything other than these two. I also had not forgot about the tea we had seen earlier.

Additionally, we bought a nice box of tea and a bag. This tea was called Wawu Mountain Sprout Tea. I will have a tea tasting of this within the next two weeks.

We had a light breakfast as we waited for the bus. We were told the bus would come soon. Then we were told it would be more than two hours. Seems one of the locals wanted to charge us some big bucks to take us back down to Liujiang in his tiny little car. We then found another person waiting for the bus to Hongya (passing through Liujiang). We decided to wait. As we waited, Dave sat quietly and filled out his journal. As he wrote, I took this picture of a curious onlooker at the events Dave was transcribing in his journal.

Again, great views on the way down the mountain to Liujiang. Lots of water and lots of green.

More great mountain, sky and water scenes taken from the bus back down the mountain.

We stopped in front of this beautiful building to let off one of the passengers. I took this very quickly.

This was our first view of the old section of Liujiang after we got off the bus and followed the directions. Pretty impressive introduction to Liujiang.

As we walked across the bridge to the old town, another bridge up river caught my eye. That was the bridge the bus had originally crossed on the way up to Wawu Mountain.

We were stopped by a car as we walked across the old bridge. Out jumped these two and we immediately recognized them as some of our sunrise party friends from the night before. The guy is a student at Sichuan University and his English was excellent. He had as much fun as our Gap Guys during the whole adventure atop Wawu Mountain. It was good to see him again and he enthusiastically greeted us. They wanted us to join them for lunch but we were unsure of our schedule. We had been told that the last bus to Emei from Hongya left at around 4 PM. Calculating the time, we figured we had about two hours here in Liujiang and even then we did not know the bus schedule from Liujiang to Hongya. The worst that could happen would be that we would catch a bus to Leshan and then to Emei. Hongya and Leshan are two district administrative units so buses were more frequent between them than to smaller towns like Emei. We were, once again, playing everything as we went.

The old bridge in the ancient town. Very impressive structure.

Details of the bridge's construction.

I was so impressed with the massive bridge that I took a couple of more shots of it as we passed under it and walked down the pathway leading to the ancient town.

This tea house originally belonged to one of the several rich families (Zeng) that thrived here before 1949 or the liberation as the Chinese refer to it. The building was really impressive with large courtyards and interior doorways and passageways throughout. The location was also well chosen as it overlooked the river and the other streets.

Entrance into the first courtyard of the Zeng Family Mansion. The dark woods contrasted with the lighter wood inside made for a startling contrast. The Chinese on top states clearly: Zeng Home Courtyard or Garden.

Beautifully maintained windows and panelling could be seen throughout the structure.

The first courtyard was massive with a theater on one end and the three adjoining buildings were now used for tea rooms. The combination of stone and wood was perfection.

Here is an example of one of the many stone doors that led off from the main courtyard into other smaller areas of pleasantry.

Inside one of the tea rooms, we found beautiful but simply placed furniture. Nothing seemed to be overdone - simple but inspiringly beautiful.

Another stone door after a long corridor down the side of one of the many buildings joined to the main courtyard area.

Chinese-style magnificence. Actually, Sunee's family has some of this style of furniture in Thailand. It is very uncomfortable so it will not be in our future when we move back and build our own Chinese compound in Hua Hin.

Sunee admires the structure of the building as well as the simplicity of its interior rooms.

Teas setting. I will look for a table like this one.

Elongated oval door leading to another simple room off to the right of the courtyard.

Another lovely Chinese table set up for tea. This I liked and will probably have one made in Thailand.

There were three or four bridges across the river. This was my favorite.

Dave and Ivan head down through one of the many hallways under the upper floors of the teahouse. This one led us back to the entrance. Everything was maintained in really top knotch condition. The whole place was simply wonderful.

Art Photo - Walking

After taking the "walking" photo above, I turned back one last time to the tea house and got this picture. With a little work in Photoshop to equalize the exposure of the inner courtyard and make the lady stand out more, I think this could be one of the best photos I took in Liujiang. We shall see. We shall see.

This is the view looking across the river from just a few hundred meters down from the tea house. Both sides of the river made up the ancient town of Liujiang.

This lady approached us and welcomed us to Liujiang. She was the head teacher at a primary school in Hongya and worked as a photographer and reporter for a local newspaper. She kindly took us around Liujiang and visited with us about the history of the area and places to see. Of course, we had only a few hours and it was obvious that we must come back and spend at least one night to see everything she had mentioned.

Attempted Art Photo - Throw Aways

Red couplets on an old door. Typical scene from the ancient towns we had visited before.

One of the many streets in Luijiang. It was obvious that this place deserved another visit. Should be a good place to take Sunee's family when they come in September.

Anyone for some ducks. They certainly looked good.

This platform was built out over the river and gives one a great view of the town, river and surrounding mountains.

The third bridge within the area called ancient town. This one also served as a small reservoir to form a swimming area. Very nice and clean.

Art Photo - Red Scrolls

This was an old house that was remodeled and made into a cute little restaurant.

Ms. He, our guide, took us to this temple when we asked if there were any temples in the area. The place was old, very old!

Upon entering, we found this guy directly in front of us. Great piece of work and just added to the exoticness.

Our guide had to eventually yell into this guys ears for him to hear her. She was telling him that she had brought a bunch of "foreign friends" to visit him. When he finally understood, he became outwardly excited and welcomed us all to the temple. He looked to be well into his eighties.

Beautifully painted Buddhas could be seen everywhere. This was obviously a real, working temple. Ms. He said that people usually met twice a month here to share a meal.

Sunee does her thing in the prayer hall.

An old Buddha head sitting by itself along the path to the upper parts of the temple.

Here Ms. He explains what she knows about the temple. She also exchanges addresses with us and I tell her about this blog. Her and her friend made great guides. They were both friendly and proud to be able to show us around.

View of the prayer hall.

Head of the sleeping Buddha. This is the first sleeper I had seen in Sichuan Province.

Another painted Buddha image. For some reason, I wanted to think that this temple was from the Song Dynasty. More research is needed.

The sleeping Buddha from the level below. He was not huge but he was certainly painted beautifully.

The Sleeping Buddha in a niche in the mountain side.

Interesting painted Buddha images off to the left of the main prayer hall.

Greetings from a painted Buddha image.

A view of the top of the prayer hall. The buildings were ancient.

We met these cute little vivacious students who were visiting from Meishan just up the road a ways. They were shy but did practice a little of their English.

After the temple, we took a walk back toward the other end (bus stop) of one of the streets. We found some baodz for Dave to try. He assured us they were good so we all got some.

Tea! (see Chinateatravels.blogspot.com)

Chinateatravels.blogspot.com

An old rock entrance into a courtyard. These were quite common and it was too bad we really had no time to explore.

A entry "blocker" in one of the many courtyards we saw. These usually were set up to keep the evil spirits from entering. Seems they cannot make sharp turns when entering a residence.

This teahouse or restaurant was undergoing remodeling. Believe it to be another old residence of a wealthy landowner prior to the liberation. It faced directly across from the first tea house we visited.

A view of Liujiang from the tea house above.

More tea. Yeh I bought some. (for further info see chinateatravels.blogspot.com)

It smells good and fresh.

He promises his tea is really good and came from the local mountain.

See this is really local tea.

Sort of looked a lot like Emei Zhu Ye Qing. We shall see. (for results go to Chinateatravels.blogspot. com.

With the purchase of another bag of tea, we crossed back over to the other side to find a bus to Hongya. As we crossed over, we met Zoe and Mia who had arrived in the town about an hour after we had arrived. Zoe, in particular, was sad that we could not spend the night and another day in the ancient town.

Zoe also had figured on getting back to Hongya and then gettng on a Leshan bus. We arrived in Hongya and as she was checking buses, we found one headed to Emei. It was supposed to leave at around 5 PM so that gave us 15 minutes. As it turned out, we did not leave until nearly 6 pm due to the bus not yet arriving from Jiajiang.

Another weekend, another China adventure. Sunrise, mountains, rivers, terraces, tea, ancient towns and good company. What more can one ask for!

Emei To Wawu Mountain (May 2)

2009-05-05T04:57:00.000-07:00

We had waited for two days to make the trip to Hongya District and Wawu Mountain. The research I had done did not reveal a whole lot of stuff about the area. What I found referred mostly to visiting the mountain for bird watchers. Seems it is a great location for all kinds of great Sichuan birds. Surely they would have more than birds so we decided to go. Unfortunately, Thursday and Friday turned out to be wet and miserable.

Dave and Ivan (John was otherwise occupied) wanted to join us on the trip scheduled for Saturday, May 2, part of the three-day Chinese holiday to celebrate May Day. We figured we could make it a day trip since the mountain was supposed to be around three hours away by bus.

The day turned out to be beautiful so we all caught the bus down to the town circle to catch another bus to the main bus station. The plan was to go to Hongya City and there transfer to the bus to the mountain. We had also heard about an ancient city, Luojiang, which was on the way to the mountain.

Here we are waiting for our bus to take us to the station. We had left a little past eight so we figured we had plenty of time.

I played around with my camera on the bus which happened to be a bit crowded by the time we got to the bus station. Nice reflection out of the bus mirror.

We arrived to the bus station at . . . 0846. We had hoped to be able to get some breakfast like we did last time. Sunee went to get the tickets and found we had about an hour before our bus was to leave. We were all surprised to find Zoe and Mia heading to the same place. As we ate our dumplings, Zoe came looking for us and said there was another bus leaving now, so Sunee went and changed the tickets and the six of us (Dave, Ivan, Sunee, Zoe, Mia and me) all got on the same bus and planned to travel together to the mountain. What great luck!

The trip from Emei to Hongya took about two hours and went through the forever typical Sichuan countryside of mountains and a green fertile flat lands with plenty of water and veggies everywhere.

I took a few pictures, all noteworthy but all basically showing the same type of geography. Sichuan is blessed with abundance.

This is the first glimpse of the city of Hongya across the river. Looked new and very well placed.

The bridge to Hongya looked to be coming up on the right and, of course, it was. The bridge was new as was everything we saw in Hongya. Well, at least new compared to what we would call ancient.

We all went into the bus station and found our bus was leaving at around 2 PM which gave us about 40 minutes for some ice cream. Since Sunee had no chance to eat her rice soup she needed some noodles to eat so we went outside to a restaurant close by. At that point, I looked at our tickets and they said 1:40 and not 2 PM as we were told. Once more, Sunee had to hurry with her food so we could get on the bus. She was not having a good day with eating for some reason. The bus left fairly close to schedule and we were on our way to Wawu mountain some three hours away. Wait, three hours! We had expected to be able to get to Wawu and back to Emei in one day. We were not prepared to stay overnight. Zoe and Mia, though, had come prepared. What the heck, we will just tough it out and make it another Chinese adventure. Three hours to sit back, relax and enjoy the Sichuan landscape go by.

This is a typical bridge that crosses the many rivers and streams in this part of Sichuan. The rivers looked to be full and running fast.

A quick picture of one of the temples we passed on our way to the mountain. No idea where were what kind, but the picture is nice.

Along the way, we saw a lot of terraces like this and with the mountains in the background, the view was stunning.

Chinese compounds could be seen as we approached the mountains. These compounds were surrounded by terraces and lots of green veggies and other products. Amazing greens everywhere.

The people of Sichuan simply do not waste any land in their growing of products. It makes the landscape really photo worthy.

More farms with more terraces.

Here is a beautiful shot from the bus of a two story house with a small and well maintained courtyard out front.

The buildings in the background gave a great feel to these terraces surrounded by tall trees.

Can you imagine living in a setting like this. The stone stairs leading down to the beautiful stream made us all want to stop and stay a while. Fabulous little place!

We are now in the mountains and the valleys are full of terraces and water growing all kinds of produce. The road begins to become winding along the ridges of the mountains.

Farms and farmland nestled between the mountains and evergreen trees made this drive spectacular all the way. We went through the ancient town of Liujiang but I saw nothing except as we crossed the small bridge in the center of town. Looked like the old part was on our right as we passed through. We shall return.

More mountains, more terraces and more beauty under a blue sky full of fluffy clouds.

This was a huge house surrounded by field and trees and located a bit off the road. Another wonderful location.

We followed this big river along the valley floor and crossed it several times as our road meandered around the mountains and forests.

About two hours into our trip we came to this medium size dam that was controlling the flow of the water of the river we had been following. A large well-maintained lake with terraces surrounding it made for a great photo.

A temple of some kind set among the pines near the lake.

I fell in love with this little cabin on the side of this mountain. All kinds of veggies were being grown all around it and in the background some pretty good looking grazing areas for farm animals.

Clouds, blue skies, mountains, rivers, and terraces. One could not ask for more. Three hours and we reached our destination - Wawu City. This place was small and the actual building were built on both sides of the road with nothing but mountain in the back. A small river ran through the village on the right and evergreen trees were everywhere. The air was magnificent and the whole place was very "aspen-like" in its crispness.

Figuring out what to do next, we all took some time to take some pictures of the area around the small town. We did get some snacks and I eyed some local tea. Must get some on the way back and report what I found in my Chineteatravels.blogspot.com.

Closeup of a flower not far from the road. Little bit of a spider web as well.

I am not knowledgeable about flowers, I just like to take their pictures. Anyone have any idea as to what kind of flower?

More pictures with the river and mountains in the background. That's Mia on the right, Zoe in the center and Ivan, the gap guy from Leshan on the left. Mia is a computer teacher who is also in my teacher's training class on Monday and Wednesday night. She is a dandy!

Figured how to get to the mountain so we bought our tickets. Got a discount and good thing, too as the gap guys did not bring very much money, figuring on a one day trip. No problem as Sunee would act as their ATM until we returned to Emei. I think the tickets were around 28 Yuan for the bus and 26 to get in the park. I need to look that up. Here Ivan and Dave proudly showoff the tickets Sunee bought for them.

All aboard to Wawu Mountain. Nice bus, too!

Mountains, clouds, and blue sky all the way. The trip was supposed to take another hour but we got stuck because of all the Chinese who had the same idea we did.

Views of the mountains continued to thrill us. This, even though we were forced to wait over half an hour until the place became less congested with cares. As we approached the lift area, we saw a long line of cars parked along side the road miles before we actually arrived.

Lift to the top of the mountain cost each of us 50 yuan round trip. Once more Sunee acted as the ATM for the gap guys. Unfortunately just as we walked up to catch the lift, Dave found he had lost his ticket and was forced to purchase another one. We figured it had been picked out of his pocket. Hey, we could not leave him behind.

Here is the view of the lift area where one could stay and where we bought the tickets.

Fairly long walk up to the actual lift. It was here that Dave found his tickets to be missing.

The lift was not new and was long, very long. It took around 45 minutes to get to the top. Because the last lift came back at 6PM and it was now 5PM, we decided to stay on the mountain. Zoe had called up to the top as we were buying our lift tickets and had reserved spaces on the floor of one of the buildings. We were not prepared but - adventure time!

There was actually a line of hundreds of people trying to get back down the mountain when we finally arrived to the top of the lift. As we walked by, they cheered us and greeted us. When some of the students in line had a small conversation with us, all the people around them cheered loudly and clapped. The line stretched back from the lift for several hundred meters before we finally ran out of people.

As we walked toward our destination and hotel we noted hundreds of azaleas in bloom. I took lots of pictures of them. Here Sunee is looking at one of the bushes full of flowers.

We had about an hour's walk from the lift to the hotel where we would stay. It was getting cold and the ups and downs of the path did not make things easier.

In bloom.

More azaleas in bloom. Most had become pretty ragged and spent but some were still in good shape.

Our final destination, Xiang Er Hotel, where we would spend the night in hopes of seeing a mountain sunrise. The area had all the convenience expected but very rustic.

As we ended our trek at the big courtyard area in front of the hotel, we saw these people cooking what appeared to be rabbit and chicken. We were offered one for the crazy price of 150 Yuan. Normally one can get a chicken for less than 20 Yuan. We, of course, decided against it.

Here is the group after our trek up from the lift. It is now quite cool. As you can see, Ivan has only a T-shirt and I had also some pretty light cloths on. I began to worry a little bit about freezing to death.

The entrance to the sleeping area where several levels of rooms were available. We had settled for the floor area for 30 Yuan a piece. Had no idea what to expect. We were hungry so we decided to check in and get some food.

Zoe and Mia go check in amongst what appeared to be a very disorganized check-in procedure. We also found out that there was a restaurant open and we all were getting hungry.

We had to wait for our table as Zoe and Mia went to check out our sleeping arrangements. By the time they returned we had a table but had to wait as the staff was very busy. Here Zoe relaxes and talks about us all freezing to death but with a great view out the windows.

Mia and Dave relax as we drink our tea and wait for our food. We were all very hungry. Sunee especially was hungry as she had been "time cheated" on eating at both bus stations.

The people sitting at the next table offered some white liquor to toast. Of course, I could not but Dave and Ivan toasted. The stuff was like pure alcohol as Ivan here shows.

The rustic buildings that were our accommodations for the evening. Ours is out of sight at the end and to the right.

After our dinner, we placed our stuff in our large shared room and we went back out to the courtyard to see what was going on. Soon these people showed up and a bunch of us get into the act of dancing around a huge bonfire.

Sunee was lucky enough to find a place I could rent this PLA overcoat. Was I happy! It was extremely warm and only cost me 20 Yuan.

Here Ivan and I are celebrating. I was celebrating because I was warm. Ivan was celebrating to keep warm.

Dave enthusiastically gets to dancing and meets a bunch of happy guys out on the dance floor. Here a new found friend helps him celebrate.

WARM!

We had a great time sitting around the cooking fire keeping warm and dancing around the big bonfire in the middle. All things must come to an end and we were all very tire from walking and changing buses and getting excited. Time for bed.

Our accommodation was a huge room with quilts, mats and blankets spread out on the floor. Along with us there were several other people in various areas of the huge room. We were all going to be cozy because it was very cold. Here Zoe and Mia get their stuff together for a good night's sleep.

Sunee manages to get us ready. I figured we would be ok with the help of the heavy PLA overcoat. We should be warm enough.

As we prepped our beds, Dave took some time out to enter the adventure in his journal.

The party did not end at the courtyard. Dave and Ivan got to celebrate with our fellow sojourners in the big room. Lots of toasting going on it looked like to me. Lots of laughing and just having a good time

This is one of several shots taken doing the celebration on a cold night.

Finally, it is time to turn in and Ivan gets comfy and warm before calling it a night. It was late, well after 1 am when things settled down.

Playing It By Ear - Another China Adventure

2009-04-25T03:56:00.000-07:00

Having received information this past week about an area not far from Emei City that had a shoe factory exporting large size shoes to the US and an area of older streets, we decide to explore the area mentioned. Four intrepid travelers joined in the search to see what we could find: Dave, Ivan, Sunee and I.

We caught a bus to the circle in Emei City in hopes of catching another bus to the area. Another China adventure begins.

We were told to catch a No.3 bus a few meters from where we got off our JiaoDa bus. As we waited, this van advertising a product, passed by followed by a Chinese marching band. Sunee and I had seen it often but Dave was a bit excited, thinking they were celebrating something important. A few minutes and he, too, thought the concept was a bit "cheezy." Loud but of little value.

The Marching Commercial

We find the bus No.3 and catch a ride to the end of the line. From there Sunee negotiates two trikes to take us to the shoe factory in hopes of finding me some large-sized shoes.

It is a shoe factory and no visitors are allowed. Sunee gave it her best shot but to no avail. Thus we hired the services of the two trikes to take us to a place that one of the trike drivers said was really great. It turned out to be not! Some kind of new "pipa" or lowquat farm which was just opened. Boring!

The "pipa" farm which is obviously in its early development stages. Nothing to see here.

I did find one lonely "pipa" and it was in pretty bad shape. Time to leave this place. Sunee was arguing with the trike driver who brought us here and was negotiating our trip back. We wanted to stop at some older houses we had passed by earlier. The driver had no clue as to why we crazy foreigners wanted to look at old buildings.

This looked to be a nice restaurant just now open at the "pipa" farm. No visitors, just us foreigners.

Sunee finally convinced the trike driver to stop at an old bamboo paper factory. Not much there to take a picture of but we all tried. Here Ivan and Dave take a picture of the old chopping maching.

This is the old house we had seen on the way to the "pipa" farm. Turned out to be a pretty decent example of Chinese "old houses." We all took several pictures from different angles. All of us were looking for that elusive "art photo" we just knew was laying around somewhere.

Here is my attempt at "art photography." Old jars at the well. At least the name sounds artsy, doesn't it?

Not far from the house we found this water buffalo keeping cool. These creatures are always good to photograph.

As all of us were admiring the old house, this guy came by with his gigantic pig. We got him to stop so we could get some pictures.

Dave was particularly taken by the size of the animal. "Biggest pig I have ever seen!" he repeated over and over. Ya gotta love the look of disbelief on Dave's face. The big was, indeed, a huge pig, as big a pig as I have ever seen. And, according to the pig owner, the boar was in no danger of losing his life as he was breeding stock. One can see why!

Ok, that was a bit fun. What do we do now? We returned to the bus area and had a lunch of noodles. They were very good. During our lunch, Sunee asked about other sites to visit. A gentleman overheard the questions and volunteered to take us to a Buddhist temple that was having a get together. He told us it would be interesting. Sunee negotiated the trip for 30 Yuan round trip and off we went.

It took about twenty or thirty minutes of traveling on a small country road through scenes Sunee and I had become accustomed to - Sichuan farmland. It never ceases to amaze just how efficient the local people are at growing their veggies.

As we climbed a small hill and rounded a corner, I heard Dave say "Wow!" There in front of us was the temple.

The Chinese on the entrance is "gao feng si" or Summit Temple. It was small but beautifully placed on a small summit surrounded by the green fields of vegetables and trees. It was a surprise sight and unexpected.

These guys were sitting just outside the entrance on the right hand side. Colorful and simplistic.

On the left side of the entrance was this photogenic set up. I could not resist the picture and it came out as good as it looked.

Dave is getting to be as big a photographer as I am. Soon, very soon, he will have is 16GB card filled up and will ask for help downloading them onto DVDs.

Inside the temple we found hundreds of older people enjoying their lunch. It seems these local farmers get together twice a month and share a lunch at the temple. This has been a long tradition among Buddhists throughout Asia. Sunee remembers she went to the local temple a couple of times a month in Bangkok when she was growing up.

There must have been a couple of hundred people sharing their meal in the courtyard and in the rooms off to the side of the courtyard. The person in charge of the temple immediately asked us to join them. We were not very hungry but could not turn down the offer. Dave, especially, was anxious to experience such a meal. "It's an experience. It's an experience." he kept whispering to us in hopes we would agree to accept the invitation. We all agreed.

Wonderful and simple vegetarian food greeted us at the table that was arranged for us. The food was really great, even if we had eaten about thirty minutes before.

Ivan enjoys the company and the food.

The veggies served consisted of cabbage, broad beans, bamboo and a lot of dofu with a spicy dipping sauce. This last is a particular favorite of Sichuan people in this area. Plentiful and tasty. When we finished our lunch, we were shown around the little temple.

Large incense burner outside the main Buddha hall.

Sunee spent most of her time visiting with the older people as is her custom. She usually enjoys surprising people by telling them her age and then finding out a little about their lives.

The main Buddha hall in all its redness.

This Buddha was to the left of the main hall. There were lots of people milling around and enjoying the community affair.

Sunee began to line up the old folks for a group picture. It took a big effort to get them all together.

Finally, we many of the people grouped together. Ivan and Dave joined the group for our official group picture.

I took this picture portrait as Sunee was visiting with her. This lady is 87 years old.

Sunee visiting.

Another group picture with Sunee. The lady on the right in black is the temple care taker who invited us to join the affair. After this shot, the care taker asked us to come see the building in the back of the temple. Had no idea what we would see.

Outside the back of the temple was a beautiful bamboo forest with dark green and pastel green bamboo leaves and trunks. Dave immediately began taking pictures as did I.

More of the bamboo forest. But that was not the big surprise that waited for us.

As we walked along the path in the bamboo forest we spotted the pagoda surrounded by the green bamboo. Here Dave gives you a feeling at the surprise that greeted him. It was magnificent!

But before we went to see the pagoda, Sunee saw that many people had etched their names in the trunks of some of the bamboo trees. She followed suit and wrote her name in Chinese along with a special blessing

The people gathered round to watch Sunee write her name. Dave thought it might be a good idea so he also wrote his name on one of the trees.

Dave carves his name into the bamboo. Great idea. Imagine some foreigner finding them in the next ten years, thinking he was the first to see this temple.

Not to be outdone, Ivan does his name as well.

Me too! Me too!

Here is the pagoda that caught our attention. It was beautiful and the surrounding bamboo forest only added to its beauty.

Dave is totally blown away by what we found in the back of the little temple. Never saw it coming. I think he may have snuck in a few pinches to make sure he was not dreaming.

More of the bamboo forest.

The bamboo was very artistic and Chinese. A better setting could not have been found for the pagoda.

Here are two pictures of the pagoda from the front. The care taker was kind enough to open it for us so we could have a look inside.

The door is opened for us to enter, so Sunee enters.

Dave is bewildered by the beauty of the pagoda and the experience he is totally enjoying.

Incense burner outside the pagoda.

Sunee enters the pagoda but because the stairs were quite small and close together, she decided not to make the climb to the top. As it turned out, the inside was just four stories high.

A view out one of the small windows in the pagoda overlooking the bamboo forest.

The inside of the pagoda was not really as tall as it appeared. We only went up about four floors to find this inner sanctum. The walls were all covered with Buddhist paintings. I particularly enjoy viewing and taking pictures of Chinese pagodas and Sunee and I think nothing of going far out of our way to find these Chinese architectural beauties.

Back in the main temple, Sunee makes a donation and signs her name, thanking everyone for such a great experience.

Our driver makes the return trip and tells us that the streets next to the bus station may be worthy of our inspection, so as soon as we got back we went exploring again.

Old Streets Beckon Once More

Once we got back to the bus station we walked down some of the local streets near it. We found some old streets still very much active.

An old pump next to an ancient wall that has been incorporated into the house structure.

As we walked among the old houses, we came across another old pump. The owners assured us that the water was good. Dave thought he would try it. Sunee was skeptical and, according to Dave, the water was indeed suspect. Here he gives it a taste much to Sunee's chagrin. The next day, Sunday, Dave would spend most of the time in bed from the results of drinking the water. One always pay for one's transgressions!

A typical male kid causing problems! Not really. He came up and wanted me to take his picture. As soon as I did, he ran away. Funny how the little girls are much more in charge than the little boys.

Still looking for "art photos," here is another attempt at producing such an image.

One of the four or so old streets still being used in this part of the Emei Mountain region.

This little girl had a great bunny to show off.

"Heaven Sent" as she referred to herself, seemed not to want to be around us or me taking her picture. Funny thing about it was that she and her little "bunny" followed us and visited with us for about an hour as we walked around. She actually lived in Emei City and was waiting for her dad to come pick her up. She was a character!

Art Photo - Drying Medicine

Art Photo - Sweeps

It was time for us to return to Jiaoda after another wonderful adventure. On the way back to the bus stop, both Ivan and Dave bought themselves a Mao jacket and Mao hat. Soon I will add their Mao dressed pictures to this blog.

Black Bamboo Valley Abduction Delayed

2009-04-24T04:15:00.001-07:00

Since we were unable to make it to the Hei Zhu Gou the previous week, we thought we would take advantage of the "Sports' Day" celebrations on Friday and make our way to the "mysterious" Black Bamboo Valley.

According to our internet research, this area is called the "Bermuda Triangle of China." All the students and teachers we talked to immediately used the word "mysterious" to describe it.

The scenic spot of Black bamboo valley located in Yi race Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan, its area is 180 square kilometers.The Black Bamboo Gouge has grand and dangerous topography, fantastic landscapes, primitive ecology, rare species, marvelous environment, abundant forest landscapes, unique natural landscapes, thick national flavor and all sorts of wonderful legends. Hence, it enjoys a great reputation in the world. (www.chinahotel.com.cn)

All week long we made jokes about how we were going to get abducted by aliens when we spent the night at Black Bamboo Valley. Disappear from the face of the planet we would. We also gloated over the stories about those 30 Kuomintang soldiers who disappeared in 1950; the two Chinese People's Liberation Army soldiers who went missing: the 1964 Forest Resources Investigation Team incident; and other great an wonderful events to make us feel a little worried about our trip.

Hey, what the heck! We are in China to have an adventure and what better adventure could there be than to disappear in the Black Bamboo Valley. We may even make it in some of those mystery articles or tourist books.

To Ebian On The Way to The Black Bamboo Valley

We hired a van to deliver us to the Emei Main Bus Station. It cost us 15 Yuan (the guy was not interested in bargaining) so we arrived early enough to catch the 0750 bus to Ebian. Coordination with Charles, the teacher at the Leshan Vocational and Technology College, was made and he would catch the 0820 bus out of Leshan and meet us around 1100 or so in Ebian. We were underway.

It was 0740 and time to get aboard. Nice bus. Very comfortable.

Tom is relaxed and feeling good about the trip to Abduction Two!

Notice the fear on the faces of these two travelers. Do they believe the stories about all those abductions at Black Bamboo Valley? I began to think so as we approached Ebian.

We arrived at Ebian at 1005. Don't believe me? Check the clock. We had to wait another hour for Charles to arrive.

As us guys hung around outside kibbitzing and generally making fools of ourselves, a police car pulled up and two police persons got out. They both looked very young. We began to make jokes about the local department sending out their forces to confront the aliens (us). As we watched these two call back to headquarters the jokes flowed like water from all the scifi movies we had watched.

Police lady: We have contact with the aliens. Request further orders.

HQ: Approach cautiously and do not make any false moves. Try to communicate with the aliens.

Police Lady: Roger, will do. Do I need backup?

HQ: Backup is on its way. Are you comfortable in communicating with the aliens? Do they appear to be hostile?

And so the movies go with various constructs on the communication angle.

As we joked about the scenario, these two young police people walked up to us and introduced themselves. They had been sent to communicate with the visiting aliens!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunee came out and it turned out that the road to Black Bamboo Valley had been washed out from the previous night's heavy rains. The police and come to inform us of this situation.

ABDUCTION DELAYED!

Another week, another disappointment! What to do? Charles was due to arrive in the next thirty minutes. We asked the police lady for a place to go visit. She suggested Luo Mu street about half way back to Emei City. Great! We decided to go check it out.

Charles arrived at around 1120 and we immediately reboarded the return bus to Emei, getting off at the crossroad that led us to Luo Mu Street.

Back to Luo Mu Street

We caught a bus to Luo Mu Street (one Yuan) and began our journey once more looking for ancient China.

We were all hungry so we stopped at this place that had fried potatoes. Looked and they were very good.

Our potatoes! Welcome to another Sichuan snack.

Welcome to Luo Mu Street. The buildings all looked to be well over 100 years old. Just what we were hoping for.

Sunee tries her hand at bargaining for some of those jiaodz steamers. The lady was not interested in selling just one so we left.

My first attempt at an art photo on the old street of Luo Mu. I call this one - Chairs

Oh, no! Not another pose from Dave. Me thinks he works to hard on posing, What do you think?

Great view of the old streets in Luo Mu. There were three or four such streets and we only walked down one of them.

Art Photo- ASLEEP

Art Photo - Yellow Door

This girl with her friend visited with us and ended up going down the street with us talking with us and just having a good time. Their skateboarding was impressive.

Art Photo - Brown Doors

Beautiful Sichuan countryside complete with water and mountains. This creek ran along the side of the ancient street we were enjoying.

Art Photo - Working Hard

Art Photo - Inside

None Art Photo - Detective Tom sluicing the great serial rape seed case.

We took a break at this farm house. Charles and Dave hang out a bit and enjoy being in ancient China.

Dave and Tom give free English lesson to our two hanger ons. The two girls were really sweet and acted like they had as much fun as we did.

We were taken to this Chinese coutyard. It was great with the open area surrounded by old buildings still being used. The owners of this house invited us in to relax and visit.

Dave checks out the drying leaves that Sunee identifies as flowers for some kind of tea.

Visiting with the owners of the courtyard who were very hospitable.

Visiting with the owners and the neighbors.

Art Photo - Chinese Setting

Our two friends had to return to their homes so I took this picture to say goodbye.

Tom continues to try his hand at Art Photography. Wonder if he was successful?

As we were walking along, we saw this guy coming up behind us. He was a unique ancient looking guy.

Art Photo - Chinese Gentleman

Art Photo - Brick House

As we walked along we came upon a house with lots of incense parts outside. We looked in and were immediately invited here. Husband and wife were both working diligently making incense sticks to sell. Hey, this could be one of my Art Photos.

Husband working hard!

When asked if we wanted to go inside and visit the incense makers, Dave kept whispering, "let's go in, let's go in, let's go in!" Experiencing the REAL CHINA.

Humm-V, Chinese-style.

Another view of the creek looking back at the cement factory we passed earlier.

We found this ancient Yi monument at a middle school just before the end of the street. Supposedly there were a lot of buddhas buried under the school grounds. This occurred over thirty years ago. Sounds very much like the Cultural Revolution hit here pretty hard. This place was supposed to be one of the big sites of the local Yi people. Guess I will do some research to see if anything happened here thirty years ago.

This bridge was called Gao Chao or high bridge and is pretty well the major landmark in the area. It is an ancient bridge that is over 500 years old or so the locals say.

After this bridge we walked to the main highway and to the bus stop just down the road. The trip back to the Emei area took only twenty minutes. We walked down only one of the streets at Luo Mu. The other streets are still there and are only twenty minutes away.

Foreign Teachers' Cultural Trip (April 19)

2009-04-19T04:12:00.000-07:00

Today we make up for Saturday's postponement of our Foreign Teachers' Cultural Trip. We have two vehicles to travel to our sites.

Jia Jiang Thousand Buddha Carving Cliffs

Ms. Enliven showed up at 0900 with the cars and gathered her foreigners quickly and efficiently. We were on our way within minutes of her arrival. Sunee suggested that we go to the Jia Jiang Thousand Buddhas site first and then the Ten Fu Tea Museum. Good idea!

Here is the bridge across the river which flows past our destination. From this point we had about another thirty minutes or so before our destination.

Along the way and especially across the river, scenes like this were everywhere. Sichuan is considered to be the "breadbasket" of China. Everywhere there is land, the Chinese in Sichuan makes use of it. What veggies they produce!

Our destination had two entrances. After going through the first, one walks through a fairly older street with some neat old Chinese houses. Along the way, I snapped this picture of Chinese chess match. Who is winning? Not a clue!

A beautiful old red door worth a picture.

This is the second entrance to the actual carved buddhas and where one must buy a 7 Yuan ticket to get in.

Here Sunee looks over some paper for Chinese calligraphy and watercolor

This is the history of these carved buddhas, carved on a rock surface at the entrance.

In we go to see the thousand carved buddhas.

One of the four lion guards at the entrance. One on each side times both sides. Beautifully carved and very picturesque.

I snuck this picture in while Dave was not watching. We have been doing a lot of poses to get exactly this effect. Good job, Dave, of not posing.

Here is the gang of eleven marching to the gates of the tourist site. Impressive lot, aren't we?

Zoe buys the tickets so we can go see our buddhas.

An impressive photo of the redness all over this place. It is a beautiful site.

Map of the Thousand Carved Buddha site.

A beautiful view across the river from the site. We decided not to go over there because there is nothing to see. Good plan!

A couple of foreign photographers trying to get the most from their visit.

Since this was the second time Sunee and I had visited, I only took a few pictures of the actual buddhas. I had most of them on my hard drive. You can pretty much get the idea from this picture what the buddhas look like.

Beautiful view of the paper museum in the middle of the site. I love taking this picture as it reminds me that I am truly in China.

Zoe explains the meaning of these sculptures. It says "five old men."

Zoe could not quite make out who these buddhas represented. Great shot, isn't it?

I just can never take enough pictures of the paper museum. Here is one with a small creek running beside it. Love the red amongst the green.

And this is the guy who is supposed to have invented paper. I will have to go do some research as to what his name is. Somewhere I read that the Arabs actually invented paper. Who knows? This is a good picture of the Chinese inventor anyway.

Got John to pose by my favorite red Chinese wall. Always a good place for pictures.

I tracked this guy for about ten minutes before he finally arrived in an area that would make a good picture. Such hard work it takes to get pictures for this blog. Worth it, though, don't you think?

Here are our three hostesses, all fellow teachers in the Foreign Language Department. No wait, Mia, the one in the center is in the Computer Department. She is one of my students in the teachers' training course I am teaching on Monday and Wednesday night. She is truly a joy to be around - cute as a button.

Now there are "SIX OLD MEN."

Let me assure you that his picture of John was not posed. He had no idea I was taking the picture. Notice the very Sichuan veggies being grown everywhere. 'Tis a great picture, isn't it? John was totally focused on the beauty of the area. Can you blame him?

We followed a path up the mountain and came to an old Buddhist Temple. It was obviously very old as Tom points out the construction that proves it.

Lots of Buddhas around. Unfortunately some had been damaged by humans and other by the weather.

Sunee, Zoe and Enliven discuss the merits of the tourist sites and they walk along the carved buddha images.

Posed! Nice try, Dave.

Zoe and Mia take a break from herding the foreigners around the site.

Posed again! Dave never gives up trying to match my great unposed picture above.

At a little past 1300 we shared a lunch inside the area, along the first street we walked through. Not bad with plenty of good solid Sichuan food to eat. We now head to the Ten Fu Tea Museum which is about half an hour or so away.

Panorama view of the Thousand Buddha Cliff area.

Ten Fu Tea Museum

We took a one lane back road to get to the Tea Museum and got stuck for about twenty minutes until the oncoming cars could squeeze by. As we waited I found this water buffalo relaxing in the shade next to his "mud pond."

Welcome to Ten Fu Tea Museum. We start our visit off with a tea tasting around a hug beautiful wooden table. Our sales ladies looked after our tea needs professionally.

This is one of their puerh teas we tasted. Actually, this puerh was the only one we tasted and we tasted it several times as we tasted some of the snacks for sale in their tea market place. Relaxing and fun but . . . Sunee and I had been here before.

Tasting tea, our three hostesses continued to have a good time. Notice the expression on Zoe's face. She automatically knows when a camera is pointed in her direction. Please, Zoe, never change. You are an absolute doll.

More tasting and snacking. Pleasant but only the one puerh was served.

Here Ivan tries out his newly acquired professional sniffing technique. Wonder what he smells?

Obviously the puerh is filling Ms. Mia with a lot of "qi." We all knew how she felt - dreaming.

Here Tom toasts the puerh to our health.

Sunee tastes the puerh. She thinks puerh tastes like Chinese medicine.

It is time to shop and so . . . Sunee shops.

Entrance to the Ten Fu Tea Museum.

We all go check out the "show" tea plantation in the back. A bit boring but we felt we should since we had tasted a lot of their puerh. Here Ms. Mia does a "downward bunny" to show her appreciation to the tea.

Friends.

Sunee and Zoe decide not to got into the museum again, so that left the rest of us. Here we look over are planned visit to the museum, devising the best options to see all the stuff in the museum. Actually, this is just a model of the Ten Fu Tea grounds. Dave thought it looked more like a war map, prepping for another operation on the enemy.

Ten Fu Tea Museum information.

Now how do I go about getting my face on this manikin. Should I give it a try?

Ms. Enliven acts as our translator and tries to explain all the exhibits. Nevermind that all of them were also in English. Good practice for her, though.

Any one for some tea?

Doesn't this hat make Ms. Enliven look sooo cute?

Here Ms. Enlive points out where the Gap Guys are from. Here translations were really accurate as we could check them against the supplied English.

Tea Map of the World. I liked it a lot.

A beautiful Russian samovar. I am the only one who knew what it was called. Are you impressed?

Sometimes I think John can actually read the Chinese he seems to be focused on all the time. Here he focuses on some of the Chinese displays of teapots.

As we made our way through the museum, Sunee and Zoe relax in the Tea Horse room and enjoy some tea. It was another good day and we all had a great time. Sunee even bought a few tea snacks from the sales area.

A Disappointment Turns Into Another Adventure - Ebian

2009-04-18T04:00:00.001-07:00

Today we were scheduled to go on a Foreigners' Cultural Trip sponsored by the university. The university tries to send us to culturally appropriate places at least once each semester. Unfortunately the weather threatened rain in the morning so we got a call from Ms. Enliven to inform us that the trip was postponed. So we are all dressed up and no place to go.

Let's go to Hei Zhu Gou, Sunee suggested. Great idea. The disappointment suddenly had turned into another China adventure!

We all got on the local bus (all six of us) to downtown Emei City. From there we caught another bus to the Emei main bus station.

The bus let us off across the street from the main bus station. Notice the clouds are still threatening us with rain. The monument you see is the typical monument found in most tourist cities - the Wuwei flying horse.

The bus station is what I call Late Russian Socialist Architecture. Massive, large and absolutely ugly. Seems this style can be found all over China, proving to any casual observer how much the Russians influenced China during the 50's and 60's.

Sunee finds out that our bus for the first leg of our journey (Ebian) leaves at 1120. That gives us about 45 minutes or so to get something to eat. Here John discusses the schedule with Tom. Neither had a clue as to what the Chinese meant. Made for a great picture, though.

The dining room in the bus terminal was not bad and it was clean. We decided to get a quick Chinese lunch before we left.

Sunee orders each of us the dining room specialty. Actually they had nothing else so we really did not get a choice. Three items plus rice for ten Yuan. Cheap even if it turned out bad.

The lunch was very good with the three items being quite tasty (not delicious) and filling. A nice start to our upcoming adventure.

The time is 1111 and we are about to board our bus to Ebian. Can you see the excitement on the faces of young adventurers?

Our bus leaves the Emei Mountain area and passes through some beautiful scenery and small mountain villages. Here is a quick look at one of those small villages.

Streams and mountains and lots of trees help pass the two hour trip to Ebian. The scenery alone is well worth the trip.

Small villages and tea plantations dot the mountain sides as we make our way to our destination.

A river below in the distance adds even more beauty to the clouds that hang over the mountains.

The trip was scenic from start to finish. The air was clear and crisp with visions of our adventure.

As we approached Ebian we began to see the beginnings of a small but active industrial base. Factories both small and large put up smoke that distracted from the scenery.

Here a small farm is nestled between the river and our road. Sichuan! Home of the ever growing vegetable plants.

We arrived at the Ebian bus station two hours into our journey. The bridge across the river stood out as soon as we got off the bus. Ebian is located on both sides of the river and is bounded by mountains all around.

Another view of the bridge, this time with some beautiful flowers adding interest to the photo.

"What a very friendly young lady," I commented to Sunee after taking this picture. "She is a tourist tout who is trying to get people to go to a hotel where she can get a commission," Sunee replied. Hey, she was cute and friendly for whatever reason. We figured out that we were a bit late to be traveling on to Hei Zhu Gou which was our original intent. We will make a return trip next weekend and travel on toe Hei Zhu Gou, a place of great mystery.

Monument of some kind with Yi writing. This was located in front of the bridge as we crossed the river. I recognized the Yi writing from the Yi museum we had visited in Chuxiong a couple of weeks ago,

Same monument with Chinese characters. The trike was the mode of transportation in Ebian.

There was a train coming on the right as I took this picture. The bridge is to my immediate left as I face the river.

Here is the panorama of the same scene above. The scenery was beautiful and the air was filled with mountain aromas of moist wood, rock and foggy trees fluttering in the breeze. After taking this photo we walked across the bridge and made a right down the only street available. On the left was the river and on the right was the mountain.

Dave and I thought this was a terrific picture so we both took it.

I stepped back a few feet and got both of the trikes with the same background.

A few hundred meters down the street, Tom scrambled down a cement embankment to the river's edge. The water, he declared, was cold and moving swiftly along.

As we walked down the road, we saw several of these fishing poles laying unattended on the cement fence overlooking the water. John picked one up just for me to take a picture of.

What were these invisible fishermen using for bate. Grubworms or maybe some kind of maggots. The pan stunk like maggots.

I took a picture of these rice buckets before we decided to eat at this restaurant. Loved the looks of these two buckets of rice covered with the rattan looking tops.

We decided to eat at this restaurant because the pork looked really good. We were not disappointed. In fact, we all felt this was the best pork (ham) we had eaten in a long time. It was beautifully smoked and lean.

Tom picks up some Harbin beer to try. He had heard of it before and wanted to see what it tasted like. In addition the Chinese guys across from our table were anxious to toast our arrival and we needed something to toast with.

The first toast was for our arrival. The two Chinese guys were more than friendly and toasted each of us then offered cigarettes to us. I neither drank any beer nor did I smoke any cigarettes.

As the Chinese guys finished their lunch, they once again came and toasted us as they left the restaurant. Who says the Chinese are not friendly?

On further into the downtown area we ran into a tea shop with this little girl acting as the proprietor. Later she got her mother to come out to visit with us. Of course, I was interested in their local tea.

We bought 500 grams of the locally produced tea. It looked good and it was not expensive. Actually, Tom bought 250 gram and we bought 250 gram. I will be giving it a taste and writing up the results at my chinateatravels.blogspot.com website.

A Yi symbol. We often saw these while visiting Chuxiong in Yunnan earlier this month.

Around the corner and into an open area we meet all of these kids just hanging out on a Saturday afternoon.

This movies gives you a feel for our interaction with all these great kids. We had a really good time visiting with them.

Two kids anxious to visit with the laowai who just happened to show up in their town.

I finally get someone to take my picture with the kids. All the other guys were busy asking and answering questions.

The girl in the middle on your left turned out to be a really great help. She pretty much took charge of our visit and explained what was going on in the little town. Later she arranged a couple of trikes to take us back to the bus station. She was a very impressive young lady!

TWINS!

These guys kept jumping in front of my camera so I got them together for a picture of buddies. Most of the guys were too shy to interact with us which was totally opposite the little girls. In fact, these guys showed a healthy respect for the little girls who were interacting with us. Almost as if they feared for their well-being if they messed with the girls.

The guys were just goofing around and showed little interest in interacting with us foreigners except when we pointed a camera their way. I call this photo: two nuts.

Sunee discusses possible English names for these girls after a request from the little girl in the yellow who took charge of our well-being. Thus began the English name process which involved about an hour of our time. Tom took out his notepad and began writing English names down based on the Chinese names he heard. The little girls worked him to death, almost.

A great portrait of one of the kids in line to get an English name.

Another really young girl waiting in line for an English name.

Here Sunee writes down a possible English name for one of the girls.

Marilyn, the little girl in the yellow, takes us back to the transportation to get a trike back to the bus station.
Here Marilyn makes sure we all get transportation back to the bus station. She told us it was too far to walk.

Sunee on the way back to the bus station in a covered trike. Our adventure in Ebian was coming to an end.

On the way back to Emei, I took a couple of pictures of this waterfall. Missed it coming in.

Dave had the misfortune of falling asleep on the bus headed back to Emei. Of course, Tom took advantage of the situation for this shot.

AS we got off the bus, it occurred to us that we were hungry, so we decided to eat some jaodz. We never turn down these Chinese dumplings, NEVER!

Hungry was Tom as this picture more than proves.

Also Dave did his share of dumplings.

As did John.

It is now down to one dumpling. Who will get it? Who will get it? This closes out another fantastic adventure in China. BTW, I got the last dumpling.

A Thursday Luncheon in Emei City

2009-04-16T04:43:00.001-07:00

Today we invited the Gap Guys to go with us to visit our good friends in Emei City. We also planned to have a special noodle lunch at a restaurant not far from our friends Chinese medicine store.

This is Xiao Ling, a Chinese medicine pharmacist who owns and operates a medical store in downtown Emei City. We met her our first week in Emei when Zoe took us downtown to shop for some essentials for our apartment on campus. Sunee happened to as Ms. Xiao Ling where the closest toilet was and she took Sunee to show her. An hour later they came back with lots of equipment and stuff Sunee had been looking for. Xiao Ling had literally taken her to the stores where they had the stuff we needed. Zoe and I spent the time relaxing in the medicine store and wondering if Sunee had been abducted. From then on we have been close friends with Xiao Ling and her husband, visiting them two or three times a week.

Xiao Ling takes us to the restaurant that served the Yunnan-style noodles. It was she who had introduced us to the restaurant in the first place. Here, John looks at the ingredients with a bit of reluctance.

Boiling hot broth is the main starting point and then the spices, meats and egg are added followed by the noodles. The stuff actually gets cooked right in front of you.

John carefully follows our lead and empties the ingredients into the broth.

Dave, never a reluctant participant in all things new, rapidly completes the task and finds time to smile for my camera over his obvious success.

John, slow at trying new things, takes his time in following the directions. He finally finishes the task and we all have these wonderful noodles for lunch.

Back at the medicine shop we meet Xiao Ling's husband who is his normal friendly and jovial self.

Although none but the Gap Guys could speak English, it was obvious that all were pleased to bring the Gap Guys into our community of friends in downtown Emei City.

After a bit of shopping at the newest department store, we stop for the obligatory ice cream. Sunee holds my bitter coffee bar in her right hand while I take a picture of the ugliest ice cream bar on the planet. The color was primer gray and was absolutely untantalizing. It was also barely edible as it was made of black sesame seeds. Yuck. One would think that a little food coloring would have gone a long way to stop the ugliness.

Another adventure, another great day in China.