Since our arrival here more than a year ago, we have heard talk of the university offering us a chance to experience Chinese culture by taking us to places that are famous in the area. We finally got the chance to go on such a trip. The van picked us all up (except Tom who was sick) at around 0800 and we were off to visit cultural sights as follows: Ebony Wood Museum, Buddhist Temples as part of the Giant Buddha of Leshan and the Tea Museum in Jia Jiang. We were all very excited!
Ebony Wood Culture Museumhttp://inchinahil.travellerspoint.com/s21/Since Sunee and I had already gone to this recently, Sunee decided not to see it again. I went in to take a few more pictures.
Welcome area outside the museum
The museum is built in Tang Dynasty style, or so I think. It took over ten years to build.
This is Zoe our Foreign Teachers Representative. She takes good care of all our needs.
A workshop set up to show how the wood is sculptured.
No touching, please!
Dr. Robert and his wife, Jean are foreign teachers from Canada but were actually born and raised in China
No Photos Please!
There is also a Mao Badge Museum. Now we now why those badges are hard to find.
Ebony wood carved like ginsing.
A buddha carved into the ebony wood
This really is a world class museum with hundreds of huge ebony carvings displayed on two floors. There is also a huge commercial area where one can spend a lot of money buying ebony wood. It is not cheap.
Wuyu Temple
We parked in front of this bridge which crossed over to the mountain where the Wuyu Monastery was located.
The bridge to Wuyu was absolutely beautiful with traditional Chinese pagodas and dragons everywhere. I took a lot more pictures than these but these are good representatives of what the bridge looked like.
Zoe sends her welcome. This is the typical modern-day Chinese reaction to seeing a camera. It happens all over China in the most unlikely places (with the exception of Wuhan anyway). How can a Western not love a people who constantly "ham it up" in front of a camera?
Panoramic view of the river area on the way to the Wuyu Monastery
Across the river, one could see another of the many Buddhist temples nestled in the forest along the river
The forest surrounding the temple reaches right down to the river's edge. Everything appeared in different shades of green making the temple even more awe inspiring
On the walk up the mountain we met this little girl and her father going down. Could not get her to smile or even say Hi
Along the path up the mountain to the Wuyu Monastery we came across many of these ancient Han tombs carved into the mountain side
Not the main entrance to the monastery but one of many we saw from a distance
As we entered the Wuyu Monastery area, Sunee found a place to . . . you guessed it. SHOP!
The signs pointed the way to the areas worth visiting
View of temple tops through a Chinese window. There is something about Chinese designed openings that I love to frame a picture with.
Two different views of the main courtyard in Wuyu Monastery. Red was the dominant color throughout
Doorway to another Buddha image framed in "Wuyu Red"
We found the Wuyu Monastery to be one of the most relaxing and beautiful temples we have visited in China. The layout was perfection and the contrasts awe inspiring. Notice the clean lines and harmony of this little area
This small pagoda was obviously a funeral pagoda in an area that was obviously used to bury the local monks. It was very ancient in its appearance
Serenity Stairs
Another temple complex nearby
Resting place, Chinese style
Red and black contrasted
Sunee against the Wuyu red wall
Buddha on a peacock
Embedded in red
A place for enjoying the river scenery below
Tea served in a relaxing pagoda overlooking the mountain scenery
Row of Arhats. These guys could have gone on to nirvana but decided to stay behind and help their fellow humans reach nirvana. Most Buddha temples have a few of these guys hanging around. Fu Hu Temple on Emei Mountain, for example, has a hall with 500 of these guys
A moongate beautifully framing Sunee. A postcard picture if there ever was one!
This monk flew by us in a hurry. I was lucky to catch him in digits.
Newly painted door with lion knockers
But, of course, the doors were locked.
Hallway to a vision of serenity somewhere inside the temple complex
I found this unique looking flower near the grave pagoda. Took some time to get the focusing correct. Nice yellow with pastel greens
Another one of the magnificent Chinese doorways. I think we will build one of these when we return to Thailand to live
Sunee checked out the Buddha image in this building and I stopped her to take this picture
Chinese patterns
Stone carvings of a huge dragon at the base of one of the funeral pagodas
Multiple Buddha images dressed in gold. Very typical of images all over China and the world
This door of black with red and gold carvings really stood out. I was forced by its unique beauty to photograph it and share it with you
Moondoor (at least that is what I call these round entrances) to a room that looked to be a reading or study room. Very beautiful and relaxing view of the river below
Portico in Wuyu Red
Capitalism Exposed - on the way out of the monastery, we found . . . you guessed it, a shopping area.
Lunch
Choosing which fish we wanted to murder for our lunch. The fish were very big
Fish Hot Pot preparations. This was the best fish we have ever eaten in Sichuan. Most of the time, the fish have way too many bones for us to try to eat.
Ten Fu Tea Museum
http://chinateatravels.blogspot.com/2008/09/ten-fu-tea-museum-jia-jiang.html
Entering the compound, one is confronted with this tall dude holding a tea leaf.
On the way to the main buildings of the museum, one sees this bronze representing the old Tea Horse Road from Sichuan to Tibet and Westward.
For more pictures and information on this great tea museum, please check out my tea blog:
chinateatravels.blogspot.com
Posts
Our first stop was to Dr. Robert's beautiful condo where we were treated to Chinese TIe Guan Yin Tea. 
Jean presented the tea using the sniffer cups or whatever they are called where the tea is poor into thin cup and then turned over to the drinking cup. I will have to research this as we bought some of those cups several years ago and I forgot about them. 
The six of us sat around visiting, drinking tea and enjoying the view from his 29th floor palace. Here Richard, the Gap Guys' sponsor and Dave sip their tea and talk about the view.
View from the condo.
Likewise Robert and Jon also enjoy the tea and the impressive view of the city of Leshan.
This is the condo we were just in. Robert's Condo is third from the top and the last to have the full view windows.
Here we have the two Gap Guys posing in the court yard overlooked by the condo. The day was a bit cool but otherwise OK.
We walked over to Robert's doctor friend who was supposed to be one of the best in all of China. His office was crowded but he took time out to be photographed with our Gap Guys, who will be retuning to England to become doctors themselves.
All us get in this photograph in the doctors busy office
Time for lunch so we drive over to the college, visit with members of the teaching staff and administration, pick up Ivan (the third Gap Guy) and we all go to a wonderful lunch.
Wonderful food Leshan Style
Dave and Jon enjoy the food and the company of one of the lovely teachers
Just keeps getting better and better
Ivan with a couple of the teachers from the college
Here is the third Gap Guy with two teachers in front of the main teaching building at the Leshan Vocational and Technology College. It will be a tough life for Ivan.
On the way back to Emei and JiaoDa we stopped to take some pictures of the river and area. Here are some colorful kites that caught my eye.
Walking back to the car, this lady stopped and asked me to take her portrait. Wow. Can you imagine that! A great portrait even if I am the one who took it. Who says the Chinese are not friendly?
And finally no trip to Leshan would be complete without a picture of the famous giant Buddha of Leshan.
