Si Chuan, China Trip 2012 - Part 8

Day 9 - 25th Dec 2012

Mask

Today, we are going to walk around Chengdu by ourselves. So we got up slightly late (not very late too..hohohho), and got ready to go down for breakfast. It is buffet breakfast, and have cornflakes too..finally got cornflakes to eat...After breakfast, we went back to our room to take our bag and set off. We went to take metro down to Jin Sha Ruins Museum, but when we came out of the metro station, we still have a quite a distance to the museum (and it is not very near...). Finally we reached the museum entrance and bought the tickets (RMB$80 each...). Then we went in to explore the place, there were 5 halls, contained all the artifacts dug out from the site. They had preserved the whole site and let it for public display. There also had videos giving introduction on how it was first found and as they dug, the more artifacts they discovered. We even went for a 4D show, showing the life of the Jin Shan people's life (Can feel the snakes crawling very fast on your butt and can feel an arrow strike on your back...). The 4D show is RMB$20 per person...a bit exp...After that, we walked to another area to see the site where the artifacts are dug out from. We stayed there until 3 plus, then we went to buy admission tickets for the next place - Du Fu Thatched Cottage (RMB$60 each). Suppose there is a free ride between 3 places if you purchase the tickets for the 3 places (which is Jin Sha Ruins Museum, Du Fu Thatched Cottage and Wu Hou Ci Memorial Temple..didn't managed to visit the 3rd place as not enough time), so we expect there is a free ride to the cottage. Instead the lady from the museum told us that the free bus is not operating now as there was road construction going on, so she took us to a bus stop and take their public transport FOC to the cottage. She didn't take with us, she told us to alight after 4 or 5 stops. Luckily the alighting bus stop is near to the cottage entrance.

Du Fu Thatched Cottage

And so, we went to explore the house of Du Fu. The place was also big, spent an hour or so exploring the place. There was a 4 storey high tower inside, i climbed up to 2nd storey and took some photos. When i came down, my friend was nowhere to be found. So i tried to search for her around the area..Gosh..i walked in and out the tower and even climbed up to the 4th level (when i don't have the intention too in the first place). Finally i gave up looking around the tower and walked to another area, there she was...(from far saw her walking at another area..haiz..). She still asked our friends in singapore to send sms to me to meet up at the south gate (already saw her before i saw the sms...kekeke). After done exploring the house, we headed out to Kuan Zhai Alley. We exited at the other gate of the cottage house, and we walked for about 15 mins to the bus stop to take the bus. It was 2 or 3 stops away. But when we alighted, we don't know where to head too...later when asked a passerby where is the alley, she told us it is just opposite the road..the name for the alley is super not easy to see, (unless you know ancient Chinese characters....hohohoho). And so we walked in the alley, there was not much people too....very nice and not squeezing to walk in the alley...We ate some xiao chi as dinner and went back to our hotel after eating..After reaching the hotel, my friend went down to shop around while i stayed in our room to watch tv... kekeke..tv time!!

Day 10 - 26th Dec 2012

Schwarze Ziege

Today, woke up at around 8 plus to get ready for breakfast. After breakfast, we made our way to the bus stop to Qing Yang Gong (青羊宫）. It was 4 or 5 stops away from our hotel, and it stopped at the bus stop opposite the temple...Quite convenient compared to taking their metro.....Apparently the places of interest are near to bus stops, rather to metro stations...And when we reached, we still need to pay an entrance fee of RMB$10 to go in (A Taoist just sat outside and issues the tickets..). The Taoist temple is the oldest and biggest of its kind in the area, located in the west of downtown. While it has a long history, the buildings are modern, cheaply-made concrete constructions, and it quite frequently shows. The statues inside are also cheap modern constructions of no real interest.All the things inside are very old, and the place is super big. There were  a lot of gods inside, and there was an animal statue (shown on the left). It was made up from a small part of the 12 zodiac animals'. (Can you figure out?) We spent about half a day exploring the temple, saw a Taoist washing her super long hair too....really super long (going to touch the ground)...And there was a place for tea too, at the back of the temple. After exploring the temple, we set off out for lunch..hungry...We decided to go back to Chun Xi Road, after finding out the original place we wanted to go had closed. But along the journey back, we alighted at Tong Hui Men Road and went to walk at a street (Qin Tai Lu) where the whole street was filled with gold jewellery shops. After walking for a while, we decided to go into a restaurant there - Tanyoto....MaLa Steamboat time.....

MaLa Huo Guo

We went in and ordered steamboat with mala and tomato soup based...and ordered a fish head, mixtures of balls (got pork, cuttlefish and prawns), lotus root, cucumber, a duck (cold dish) and got a free side dish (corn..don't know what is it called...but still nice to eat..hahaha). We waited for some time before all the food came...The fish head was divided into 2 and boiled in both the soups (i took the mala and my friend took the tomato....). Wah!! The mala is super super ma....cannot tahan...When i ate the fish, my tongue was ma...until cannot talk already...hahhaa..i almost wanted to cry out....really cannot tahan...I told my friend to put all the rest of the food into the tomato-based soup...Cannot eat any more with the food in mala....We spent 2 or 3 hours for this meal..hahaha....Super full after eating....Then we slowly made our way back to Chun Xi Road for shopping (snacks and souvenirs time....). We went back to hotel room to rest for awhile first..then we went down to shop around and bought souvenirs (panda items) and snacks back...After bringing back the stuffs back to the hotel, we went down again to buy some food back...heavy lunch...can't even eat proper dinner...Bought alot of snacks again in the supermarket...kekeke...We had instant noodles for dinner and my friend bought a few yogurts back to try...after that, we went back to hotel to make our noodles...ahh..the instant noodles also oily and no taste..plain plain de...kekkee...Then is back to tv and ipad's time...night night!


Stay tune for the last day's journey in Chengdu..... ^_^

Places visited:
1. Jin Sha Ruins Museum
2. Du Fu Thatched Cottage
3. Kuan Zhai Alley
4. Qing Yang Gong
5. Qin Tai Lu
6. Chun Xi Road

Hotel Stayed:
Haiyatt Hotel

Si Chuan, China Trip 2012 - Part 4

Day 5 - 21st Dec 2012

Rice in Bamboo

Today woke up early again...got ready and put our luggage outside our room and went for breakfast. Simple dishes for breakfast, there was a bowl of soya too which doesn't taste like it. I can't find my battery pack...sad..don't know where it went to (until now, also cannot find it). After breakfast, we boarded our bus to set off our journey. First stop, we were going to Highland Bee Farm. There, the guide brought us to a room, where the staff started to introduce to their honey products..i almost fell asleep there (due to sleepless nights from the previous days).....he let us tried their honey jelly too, which is the best of all. And after the introduction, he led us to another room where they are selling their products there...Mi and my friend just walked out and went to toilet. Hahahaha....don't want to get cheated again...So we just went up to the bus to wait for the others. After that, we traveled back down the mountain (it's a long journey ride down) and went to China's bamboo City where we had our lunch there. Along the way, the tour guide told us about the bamboo city and bamboo was being used in making pictures....The dishes for our lunch were quite slow in serving...in fact when they had served until the 4th or 5th dishes, everyone was already full. But there were still some more dishes being served, which we didn't even touch. There was a dish quite nice from this meal, which is the bamboo rice. They had cooked the rice in bamboo...too bad only 1 serving for each..if 2nd serving of rice is asked, they only give white rice.  The tour guides gave us cold drinks and beers to drink too....as the ban is lifted (not allowed to drink cold drinks/beers while staying at high altitude). After lunch, we started our tour in the bamboo city.

Holders made of Bamboo

The tour guide introduced us to the local guide of bamboo city and she led us around their exhibit to see their masterpieces. The master (don't remember the name..still alive...) is a great person and he even have classes to teach people how to do this art (people from around the world actually comes and learn the art from him). After showing us the products made from bamboo, we were led to a room where there is a demo - step by step how a picture is being done by using bamboo. It was very amazing, and it really really takes up a lot of patience. There is a master piece - a picture of Guan Yin. It will go invisible if you are seeing straight from the front. But if you turn the picture to slightly sideway, the picture of Guan Yin will appear before you (It is called 'The Invisible Guan Yin') and it is made from bamboo! They even have colored bamboo, there is a piece of art - where it has 99 tigers in it. It is made by using colored bamboo. There is another art piece where ancient kings & queens faces (total of 100 kings & queens) are created in it. They even made a calendar, wireless keyboard and mouse from bamboo, very interesting. Amazingly the feel on the keyboard feels good...hohohoho...After spending some time for bamboo products shopping, we set out for our next stop - Leshan Buddha.

LeShan Giant Buddha

We arrived at the ferry jetty, our tour guide went to the ticket counter to help us to get our tickets. Then we made our way down to the boat. And we are required to wear a super orange colored life jackets. We also waited for some time, cos our boat was not full yet. We waited for at least 10 or 15 mins, finally our boat left the port. It was first started by a monk called Haitong, but the construction took too long to complete. He died before it was completed, the Buddha was later completed by his disciples. The whole place looks like a giant sleeping Buddha and where Leshan Buddha is, the 'heart' of the sleeping Buddha. And so, the boat set off and arrived in front of Leshan Buddha. We were told that we only have 7 or 8 minutes to take the photo of the Buddha. They even provide service to help you take professional photos. After that, the boat brought us back to the port and that's it (Tour ended...hohoho..). Then we made our way to our new hotel in Jiajiang - Venie Hotel. Ohh...there were some of the tour members who went for body massage when the rest went back to the hotel. So dinner was set at around 7.45pm. We didn't went for the massage, so we were brought to the hotel first. We arrived at around 6 plus, then we went up to check out our room. The room was slightly better than the previous ones and there is heater in the room (too strong...hahaha..). Anyway the room was facing the main road (too much noise by cars), so we requested to change room. Our tour leader changed the room with us, which is not facing the main road. My friend went to the toilet and then followed by mi. We both thought the toilet had a smell after that (she thought it was me and i thought it was her..hahaha). Anyway after settled our stuffs in our room, we went down to the lobby for internet. Dinnertime....we finally had dinner without wearing our outer jackets. Heater was strong enough to keep our food warm. After dinner, we wanted to go the mall opposite the hotel but we need to cross a super big road with no traffic lights and there were alot of big trucks passing. It was very dark and it started to rain. So we gave up the idea and went back to our room, by then there was a super strong stench coming from the toilet. My friend still went in to take a shower...with the smelly stench...hohoho..I tried to call the housekeeper to come and take a look after her shower, the housekeeper just washed the drainholes with water and sprayed some air fresher. After the housekeeper left, i went to smell the toilet. Gosh!! It's a mixture of smelly drain smell and air fresher...wanted to faintz....So i went to look for our tour guide and request for a change of room again. Luckily the hotel has available room to change for us. So we moved from 1 end to the other end, and we went to check out the toilet, whether got stench. There was none, for start. Don't know why, the stench started to come later by the night...Sianz sia....we needed to stay in this hotel for 2 nights and we got a smelly toilet....But luckily the stench in the 3rd room is not so heavy than the previous room..so just bear with it and tuned in for the night....My friend complained too hot to sleep cos the heater was too strong, causing the room too warm for her to sleep well...But for me, i finally slept (really feel like i am sleeping) after 4 days of no proper sleep (think craving for sleep by this time)..hahaha....

To be cont'd.....

Places visited:
1. China's Bamboo City
2. LeShan Giant Buddha

Hotel Stayed:
Jiajiang Venie Hotel