[VLOG#19] Chengdu Day 4

Iona

(Video only)

[VLOG#18] Chengdu Day 3

Iona

(Video only)

Pandas (finally!)

Elizabeth (Liz)

Quote of the day

        "It's cow stomach"

                       -Iona Steven

The day has come. The moment I have been waiting for. We finally saw pandas and it was sooooo worth it!!! They were so cute!! We saw Pandas climbing trees and rolling around eating bamboo! We even got a chance to see two cubs play with eachother in the Panda Kindergarden! After today it became quite obvious why the animal is regarded so highly in China.

Sichuan History Highlights

Ms Waterman
(teacher)

Today we visited the Du Jiang Yan irrigation system. The name means “capital river wier” and the system was built by Li Bing during the Qing dynasty 2,200 years ago to unify 6 competing states. It took 25 years for Li Bing to build it and it was built without any concrete piping (and still has none today!). We walked with Maya to see the different parts of the system which filters water for 7 million hectares in Sichuan. Since the rainy season doesn’t start until July, the river was relatively calm and we could walk across the floor of the human-made canal.

We spent the rainy afternoon outside at Mt. Qingcheng, a mountain with 36 peaks which is also the center of Daoism in China. Daoism (or Taoism), as the girls reminded me, is focused on human’s worship of nature and search for harmony with nature. The pavilions we passed were all made of and decorated with natural materials - wood, bark, and moss. We noticed that there are trees growing through some of the temple roofs, and Maya told us that Daoists seek harmony with nature in all ways, including in their construction. The park was very peaceful even though there were many other visitors. We could hear birdsong and at several points, I smelled jasmine flowers but couldn’t locate them.

[VLOG#17] Chengdu Day 1

Iona

(Video only)

A City of Opportunities

Kelby

Early morning or late night? That’s the question we were asking ourselves at 1:30 AM as we had just pulled up to the hotel in Chengdu. The plane was a bit rough in the beginning, well, according to Iona and Mrs. Waterman. Liz and I fell asleep within 15 minutes of the flight, which was a blessing in disguise considering there was lots of turbulence in the beginning of the flight. I woke up to ask Iona what was happening, but she simply replied, “Oh, nothing. Just go back to sleep.” I listened.

When we arrived at the hotel and proceeded into our rooms, Liz, Iona and I were preparing for bed. Iona decided she needed to take a shower before our nice, deep slumber of 5 hours. The shower head fell right of the nozzle within 3 seconds of turning it on. It was one of those nights.

We woke up at around 7:30 AM, had breakfast, met our tour guide outside the hotel, and our day did not just start, but it continued. The guide brought us to multiple sights around Chengdu, including a shopping street, wonderful restaurant, Du Fu’s Cottage, and a park.

[VLOG#16] Lijiang Day 3

Iona

(Video only)

Sisterhood Meets the Naxi People

Iona

The sisterhood started off the day with congee, rice noodles, and egg on toast on the first level of our Naxi-styled hotel. At 9am we met Evan to head to the Mu Residence; the Mu family has occupied that estate for 22 generations which brought them to the 1720’s. It was very interesting to see how the residence had been split up into a work/education area, a rec time area, and an area for praying with a temple that overlooked the city. From this view, it became evident that every house in sight was the same style with the same height and same coloured roofs. Makes you think about how big the vision and how effective it must have been communicated to have had every single house in the region built the same way, to the same height.

[VLOG#15] Jade Dragon Stone Mountain

Iona

(Video only)

A Mountain, a Village, and a Show

Ms Waterman
(teacher)

Our day started in the dark this morning since we woke up before sunrise to eat breakfast and set out for Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. That might sound like it was incredibly early in the morning, but we ate at 7:00. It was so dark because the time zone here in Lijiang (which borders Tibet) is in the same time zone as the rest of China. It is strange to me that such a huge country has only one time zone, but it has been great not to have to reset my watch over and over as we travel.

On the drive to the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, we learned that it is 5,600 m high - 17,000 ft - and that it measures 40 km north to south and 25 km east to west. The footprint of the mountain is huge! It’s called a snow mountain because there is snow on the top year-round. It’s also the southernmost snow mountain in the northern hemisphere and no one has ever succeeded in summiting the highest peak. That sounds like a challenge to me!

From Mountain to Mountain!

Elizabeth (Liz)

Quote of the Day

     "You have been tired for a week!"
                              - Rebecca Waterman (to yours truly :))

Well we were on the move yet again this time leaving the humble Shaxi Village and over to Lijiang. The car ride was wonderful as we went down the winding mountain roads taking in our final moments with the peaks and ridges. Before we went to Lijiang we first stopped at a Naxi village, which I was super excited about because that happened to be the minority I had studied this autumn. But before we entered the village Evan, our guide, took us to see these amazing frescos from the Ming and Tang dynasty. They were all depicting Buddha, just like the carvings we saw on the tea trail. Evan also showed us a 600 hundered year old tree, which was crazy and quite lovely.

After that we explored the village which had all kinds of knick knacks from Mao clocks to bugs encased in Amber, which were all super cool and had lunch which consisted of meat, veggies and rice. We then headed over to yet another embroidery school that amazed and shocked us. The produced textiles were out of this world and just so amazing to look at. Afterwards it was finally time to head over to Lijiang village were we quickly checked into to our historic hotel.

From there we walked around on the cobblestone streets of Lijiang, enchanted by every shop, every demostration and every historic site. After we had dinner and parted ways with Evan, we decided to look for some snacks for tommorrow. Simple enough right? Wrong. We went down probably every possible street looking for a supermarket or convience store with no luck, until we gave up and just bought snacks from a shop that we knew was close to the hotel.

Thats all for now!
Over and Out

[VLOG#14] Lijiang Day 1

Iona

(Video only)