October 19th
So this morning, we woke up to make our way to Leshan. Leon's uncle had one of his friends/ painting student (this guy also ran his own business) drive us to Leshan. Let me just say this was the drive from hell. This guy was a crazy driver - he was swerving, honking, gunning it and slamming on brakes, singing, and checking phone all while driving. Let's just say we asked to ride back in another car.
On the drive, we saw tea planted along the interstate and other farms. Well we saw a blur of these things :) We had a nice lunch in downtown Leshan. The meal was beef in broth - meat, tendon, half tendon/half meat, tongue and steamed beef. We also had rice, sour cabbage and steamed cabbage. There were also pepper flakes available for dipping - I gave mine to someone else because my spicy tolerance is quite low!
At lunch, the younger cousin gave us all Miangui flowers. These flowers had a lovely aroma and we tied them on our shirts.
Leshan is known for this Giant Buddha that is carved in the side of a mountain. There are Buddhist temples throughout the park and one had a laughing Buddha.
The visit to the Great Buddha of Leshan consisted of stairs, stairs, and more stairs. There was a massive amount of people that were here - probably because it was Sunday. During our wait in line to walk down to see the Giant Buddha, I was teaching / quizzing Teresa on her English words. I think some of the other people were also getting an English lesson. After we made the trek down with 5,000 of our closest friends, we got to the bottom and realized we have to climb all the way back up. After getting back to top of the mountain, we then realized we have to walk back to entrance. Tired feet.
Plan for not getting in the car with the crazy driver - Leon's uncle told the crazy driver that my mom had a heart condition and was concerned about riding with him back to Chengdu because she might faint. So we got to ride back to Chengdu with Leon's younger cousin Wenfeng. He is the best driver we have had in China - it helps that his occupation is a safety engineer for the highways. He also was kind enough to find us cold Cokes after all the walking we did at the Giant Buddha.
Along our drive, we ran into a traffic jam. They were doing some road work. In the areas of the construction, they had fake policemen and a fake police car. The policemen looked like paper mâché statues that were lacquered. The car was just a flat panel. It took us almost 3.5 hours to get back (it took us around 2 hours to get there).
For dinner, our car of people met with the older cousin and his wife for hot pot. Hot pot is just what it sounds like - a very hot pot in the middle of the table that you cook your food in. Items we had available for eating included tripe (stomach), eel, small intestine, bamboo shoots, shrimp dumplings, meatballs, beef, spicy beef, seaweed, spam, mushrooms, mushroom soup, rice noodles, Chinese okra, some vegetable we don't know the English name of (woshun in mandarin), beer and coke and tea. I tried everything but the tripe and bamboo shoots (shoots were all gone before I could try).
Normally, the hot pot is very spicy for cooking the items, but they were very kind and got a pot that had a section that didn't have all the chili peppers and spicy ingredients. After we were all done, we watched Leon eat for another 45 minutes. We have now started to refer to Leon as a gluttonous pig in mandarin.
After dinner, the older cousin and his wife gave us beautiful bracelets that were made from fragrant wood. We aren't supposed to get them wet for 3 months. After so much food and walking/climbing, we were ready for bed!!!
So this morning, we woke up to make our way to Leshan. Leon's uncle had one of his friends/ painting student (this guy also ran his own business) drive us to Leshan. Let me just say this was the drive from hell. This guy was a crazy driver - he was swerving, honking, gunning it and slamming on brakes, singing, and checking phone all while driving. Let's just say we asked to ride back in another car.
On the drive, we saw tea planted along the interstate and other farms. Well we saw a blur of these things :) We had a nice lunch in downtown Leshan. The meal was beef in broth - meat, tendon, half tendon/half meat, tongue and steamed beef. We also had rice, sour cabbage and steamed cabbage. There were also pepper flakes available for dipping - I gave mine to someone else because my spicy tolerance is quite low!
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| This is our crazy driver! |
At lunch, the younger cousin gave us all Miangui flowers. These flowers had a lovely aroma and we tied them on our shirts.
Leshan is known for this Giant Buddha that is carved in the side of a mountain. There are Buddhist temples throughout the park and one had a laughing Buddha.
 |
| Tickets to the Giant Buddha |
 |
| Which one is Buddha and which one George? |
The visit to the Great Buddha of Leshan consisted of stairs, stairs, and more stairs. There was a massive amount of people that were here - probably because it was Sunday. During our wait in line to walk down to see the Giant Buddha, I was teaching / quizzing Teresa on her English words. I think some of the other people were also getting an English lesson. After we made the trek down with 5,000 of our closest friends, we got to the bottom and realized we have to climb all the way back up. After getting back to top of the mountain, we then realized we have to walk back to entrance. Tired feet.
Plan for not getting in the car with the crazy driver - Leon's uncle told the crazy driver that my mom had a heart condition and was concerned about riding with him back to Chengdu because she might faint. So we got to ride back to Chengdu with Leon's younger cousin Wenfeng. He is the best driver we have had in China - it helps that his occupation is a safety engineer for the highways. He also was kind enough to find us cold Cokes after all the walking we did at the Giant Buddha.
Along our drive, we ran into a traffic jam. They were doing some road work. In the areas of the construction, they had fake policemen and a fake police car. The policemen looked like paper mâché statues that were lacquered. The car was just a flat panel. It took us almost 3.5 hours to get back (it took us around 2 hours to get there).
For dinner, our car of people met with the older cousin and his wife for hot pot. Hot pot is just what it sounds like - a very hot pot in the middle of the table that you cook your food in. Items we had available for eating included tripe (stomach), eel, small intestine, bamboo shoots, shrimp dumplings, meatballs, beef, spicy beef, seaweed, spam, mushrooms, mushroom soup, rice noodles, Chinese okra, some vegetable we don't know the English name of (woshun in mandarin), beer and coke and tea. I tried everything but the tripe and bamboo shoots (shoots were all gone before I could try).
Normally, the hot pot is very spicy for cooking the items, but they were very kind and got a pot that had a section that didn't have all the chili peppers and spicy ingredients. After we were all done, we watched Leon eat for another 45 minutes. We have now started to refer to Leon as a gluttonous pig in mandarin.
After dinner, the older cousin and his wife gave us beautiful bracelets that were made from fragrant wood. We aren't supposed to get them wet for 3 months. After so much food and walking/climbing, we were ready for bed!!!
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