Emeishan Day 2

Day 2

This is the second day of our excursion. The first part was an hour climb to Wannian Si, the oldest surviving temple on Emeishan, dating back to 1611 and has been in continuous use since. The views continued to become more and more breath-taking throughout the day.

There were a pair of these statues guarding the front gate of Wanian Si.

ELEPHANTS!

Inside the gold-painted building is a solid gold and ivory statue of a multi-faced Buddha atop an elephant. I didn't get a very good photo of the statue.

The Washroom

This pond is full of turtles. I love turtles. It seems that these turtles don't just happen to live there, but are being kept. Not to eat, just to have. I can dig that.

I also love frogs. This pond was devoted to frogs. I could hear at least 40 frogs screaming, but I couldn't see any of them.

Time to go to lunch.

A 45 minute climb down to a temple near Qingyin Ge. I don't remember the name of the temple, I just remember that it's near Qingyin Ge (Pure Music Pavilion).

A warning sign to the merchants that peddle souvenirs along the trail. Most of the souvenir stalls were empty. Tourism has been down a lot from normal due to the earthquake. People are afraid of rock slides and won't climb the mountain.

Lunch Time!

This is the temple where we ate lunch. Off to the right is a little restaurant that only serves vegetarian dishes. To please tourists, most of the dishes included an interesting variety of fake-tofu-meat. It's hard to see, but the man walking down the staircase is waving.

WATERFALL!

I climbed all over this waterfall. If I had been in my bathing suit, I'd have climbed in it too. I was able to get a lot of shots that no one else got because I wasn't afraid of cold water. In case the next photos don't clue you in, I like taking pictures of waterfalls.

The several sacred Buddhist mountains in China are devoted to different disciplines. Emeishan is devoted to education.

If you don't feel like climbing the mountain yourself, you can always pay sedan-men to carry you.

First monkey sighting. I wasn't quite to the monkey area where the monkeys tend to congregate. While I was taking a second picture of this monkey (which was eating a plastic bag at the time) another monkey ran past me at top speed, grabbed the first monkey, disappeared into the forest, and scared the crap out of me in the process.

The way to monkeys.

MONKEYS!

I really liked the old monkey on the right. He had a presence and respect that the other monkeys lacked. If you look closely at his nose, you'll notices that his left nostril has been ripped open. He has experienced a lot in his many monkey years.

I've seen and held a lot of monkeys compared to most Americans. Generally I find monkeys adorable and will hold and play with baby monkeys any chance I get (tamed monkeys that is). They may look cute in the picture, but these are the ugliest, mangiest monkeys I've ever seen, and nothing could compel me to try and touch one. Not even the trained and uniformed people offering to help me hold one and take a picture with it for 4 yuan. Nope. Not happening.

This is the Qingyin Ge. To get from the monkeys back to our tour bus, we passed the pavilion again, but got a much better view than on our way to lunch. The water is really low this time of year, normally the water under the bridge is a lot more violent.

Because in every Olson is a budding horticulturist, entimologist, herpetologist, and all around naturalist, I took the following pictures.

This little statue was sitting at the end of a little wall surrounding the pavillion outside Wannian Si. Look at the top of his eye.

This is a close-up of one of the turtles in the turtle pond. Isn't he adorable? Don't you want one? I do!

That's the last of the photos from the Leshan Emeishan excursion. Now for some updates about this week.

I am employed. I teach English to toddlers twice a week for an hour and a half. I've taught twice already . . . and they love me! Our first lesson was over articles of clothing, so I brought in my own clothing and had them tell me what it is and then put it on. This school gets native English speakers to teach the kids. I guess most of the teachers they get don't try very hard. My boss is very impressed that I actually want the lesson plan at least a day in advance to prepare and not just ten minutes before class. The kids are adorable.

This afternoon, Zhong laoshi took my Intermediate 2 class to a tea park to try and speak Chinese with some random grad students she knows from another university in Chengdu. She partnered us up with different people. Everyone else was talking about movies and where they've visited in China. My conversation partner found out that I've studied some of the Confucian Analects and was asking me questions like, "How would you describe the difference between Confucian philosophy and Christian philosophy? Do you think that Confucianism has had more influence on Chinese history than the Bible has had on European history? Why?" That's more than enough for a comparative religious studies doctorate. Can we please dumb down the dialogue a little? My brother lives in New York. I study Chinese. My favorite color is green. I like eating ice cream.

Before we walked into the park, some reporter-like lady asked to interview me for a moment (in English). There was a camera-man too. I don't know if they were actually reporters or telecom students. She asked me about my reaction to the earthquake and how I think the city is coping now that a month has passed. I basically said that Chengdu is fine and it seems that most people are going on with their lives. Then she asked me if I thought the prices had gone up. I replied that to me, everything in China more than reasonable. She laughed.

That's all for now. This weekend a few students and I are going to explore the sights within Chengdu.