13th. Chengdu overnight.I got dinner for about 80p. I didnt manage to actually find the place I was supposed to go but I still ended up having a very yummy dinner! I wasted some money today buying shit I totally do not need.. erg. Comfy comfy room. Comfy comfy sleep.
14th. Le Mountain.The tour group picked me up at 6.30am today from the hotel. I was the last one being picked up so it was a bit daunting to get on a bus with 26 pairs of eyes staring. And then having to walk up to the rear of the bus only to have to wake up someone who was sprawled across four seats to let me sit down -__- He was grumpy. At this point I was thinking.. great, rude and moody people to travel with. However, as the day wore on everyone was friendlier and it was a good laugh being with the people I was with. There wasa mixture of young and old, though most of the people were middle aged or late twenties. I made friends with a 20 year old girl who was also on her own and a few guys who were sitting near us. It was a 2 hour journey to the mountain, and we stopped for "brunch" at 9.40am.. This was going to last us until dinner at around 6pm at the hotel we were going to stay at. We got to Le Mountain before noon, and headed straight towards the main attraction - the big stone Buddha. I've seen this statue in many films and TV series, so it was exciting seeing it properly. We had beaten the crowds and didn't have to queue to descend down the steps to get to the Buddha's feet. The statue stands at 71m, and is that largest stone Buddha carving in the world. It was pretty huge. And rather impressive. After this main thing, there were buddhist temple and shrines for people to pray at etc. The weather was mega killer hot and I was sweating like a pig, less so than some other people though :3 On the way past the queuing area for the stone Buddha, the queue was now very long. I'm glad that we didn't arrive later and queue, I think we would have all be very irritable and moody..
The tour guide explained that this year at Emei Mountain (which we are visiting tomorrow), they are currently blessing jade buddha necklaces so that your wishes will come true etcetc. But if we wanted to do that, you cannot buy a jade buddha at Emei Mountain, it must be bought somewhere else for it to be properly blessed.. (there's also a gazillion other conditions to fulfill, such as you have to wear the necklace at least 24 hours for the first time after it's been blessed), so the last place we visited at Le Mountain was a jade shopping area. I was tempted, but as I am on very little money for the rest of my stay in Chengdu, I held back :D
We then went to an Oriental Buddhist Park, with lots of buddha statues and carvings. It was a nice place, but the weather was really getting to everyone. The humidity in the air is very high, so your skin gets really clammy and disgusting. Woop. At this park, there is the biggest horizontal carvng of the buddha. That was pretty COOL.
The group was then taken to some museum thingy to do with some kind of wood. Idk, I chose not to go inside so I sat outside waiting whilst other people wasted their money inside. I got chatting to some other tourists, which was cool. They'd also been to Jiu Zhai Gou in the past few days so we discussed what we'd seen there. I also made friends with some chinese guys from america (who was with an american friend, hence how I started talking to them) who were with another tour group. It was weird conversing in english again, and I felt outnumbered as the only one speaking in an engish accent.. Arg. I even slipped out some chinese at some point.. I'm getting used to speaking in chinese all the time now xD
I also spoke to some old guy from australia. Omg, his accent was so thick, it was amazinggg.
So yes. It's nice randomly chatting to strangers.
Back at the hotel for the night. I'm sharing a room with the girl I met :), going to see some Sichuan performance today, including 变脸"Changing Faces". I'll try to get some good recordings.
15th. Mount Emei.The show last night was surprisingly good. It had a variety of traditional performances such as dish spinning, giant puppets, dances and the finale was the "Changing Faces"show. I'm definitely glad I went, though our seats weren't great :(
We had a 5.30am wake up call, breakfast at 6am, and left the hotel at 6.30am to start going up towards the mountain summit. There was a bus ride for about an hour to the cable car station, and then a 3 minute climb via cable car, followed by a short walk to the "Golden Summit". The main feature is this huge golden statue of some god on this elephant.. Tbh, I didn't really pay attention to the guide so I have no idea about the details.. From the cable car and onwards, we were travelling within clouds. At the summit, we were above a layer of cloud, so it was amazing to be above "sky" level. However, the sky above us was still white.. I didn't really work out why, maybe just general smog..? It was so bright because of the white cloud. The sun filtering through also made it quite warm. Lots of members of the tour had bought huge coats to wear on the summit after the recommendation from our tour guide, and they were complaining that they'd been conned etc etc because the guide gets money from the rentals.. I'm just glad I'm not one who got one xD
One recurring theme with going on tours is that the guides will take you to shopping areas where they will receive a percentage of the takings for whatever you buy. Be it anything from coat rentals to jewellry to 'extra' attractions you have to pay for. Thus, I am a bit skeptical as to whether the products they recommend are truly worth the money or not.
After descending from the summit, we had lunch back halfway up the mountain and then proceeded down the mountain via a shrine where they were doing the blessings. On the way up to th shrine was a group of wild monkeys. They steal colourful objects from you, hoping that they are edible and tasty. Lots of people's water bottles and biscuits got stolen. One even stole my blue microfibre cloth, tasted it and then left it on the floor. :/ So basically I have to carry around monkey germs til I get it laundered. The monkeys were really entertaining and most of them so cute, especially the baby ones. There was one which I think was the alpha male which got really vicious and me and my friend proceeded to run away from him. Fun times. We walked another 3km to a bus station where we took the bus back to Chengdu. I really enjoyed this tour, especially because it was just really interesting talking to the different people in the group. I came to be good friends with a few of them and it was a good laugh. My grandparents had recently drawn a bad image of tour groups but everyone was so helpful to each other and rather caring, sharing food, experiences and relating to one another. More warm fuzzy feeling.
Couchsurfing tonight once again, and tomorrow night too before I get a train back to Beijing. I'm staying with a girl at Chengdu University of Technology. She has been very welcoming so far :) I'm running out of cash, so the first thing I am going to do tomorrow is take some money out.. if I can.. with my credit card (eeek.) Emergency, okay?
Then go aroud Chengdu hopefully with the girl I went on tour with ^_^ YAY, TOURFRIEND.
I went through a HUGE CD buying phase throughout the second half of secondary school.
I don't like how cold it is here. BOO, BOO.
Today was interesting. I went to 798, which is a contemporary art district in Beijing, conveniently placed about 15minutes down the road from where my grandparents live. It's an old factory area converted into an art district, ranging from ceramics to clothing. There are also lots of little cafés and restaurants there. The area is littered with vibrant graffiti, giving the old factory a modern edge. In many of the small shops, I found that there was a recurring theme of communism and the Great Leap Forward. I couldn't really tell if it was serious or just for the vintage factor from selling and displaying the items from that era, but I felt that it was the latter. The items sold in the small boutiques were all rather unique items. I even found one selling sew-on patches with the likes of Slipknot and "Punk never dies" slogans amongst images of Mao and whatnot. Unfortuneately almost all of these places forbid photography so I couldn't document a lot of what I saw.
in Beijing. Lots of independent artists as well as companies promoting their work. My favourite exhibition was at the Paris-Beijing Photo Gallery, where they were featuring a exhibition by Mathias Braschler and Monkia Fischer. Two swiss photographers who travelled China in 2007 taking images of people which truly capture the essence of Chinese people. Their project was entitled "The Chinese". Click to see. Each picture had a name and occupation of the person in the portrait. They had certainly cast a wide net for theis subjects, which ranged from the CEO of a well-known car company to nomads in Inner Mongolia to a prostitute. The girl on the right is the star performer in a travelling circus.
I bought this book in my book buying frenzy before my trip to China. I finished it yesterday on the train. It was on a 3 for 2 offer, and as it had been an international bestseller, I thought I wouldn't be wasting my money. I just read the blurb, didn't even really know what it was about, but that it seemed interesting enough. After finishing Eclipse (Twilight series), I thought that I should probably read something.... better (for lack of a more suitable word), and so I started this. It was only when I opened the book to start reading that I knew that this was originally written in swedish, and then it had been translated into english. Personally, I don't think translations are very good because things that the author wanted to convey gets lost in translation. Nevertheless, I read on. The first parts were confusing to say the least. Characters are introduced that seem to have no link whatsoever, and you don't know whether the events that happen are important enough to keep in mind or not. I hate leaving a book unread, so stubbornly I continued. The book is written focusing on a number of main characters. The girl with the dragon tattoo is Lisbeth Salander, and the main focus isn't really on her or her tattoo, though she does play a prominent part later in the novel. The swedish title for the book is actually "Men who hate Women". If that was the english title, I would have definitely not bought this book. However, it is a more fitting title in terms of matching up with the plot. This is a crime novel which explores human relationships as well as corporate politics. Throughout the book you are yourself trying to think of conclusions to the mystery that is to be solved, yet Larsson successfully creates an ending which is both surprising but completely believeable. The multiple sub-plots build up each character and adds a lot of depth to each of their lives. Larson does this without over-complicating or confusing things. As the story unfolds, the characters and their lives start to slowly knit together to form a perfect tapestry of a crime thriller. Larsson uses this book to critique Swedish society. In this one, the society issues are mainly moral bankruptcy of big businesses and men who are abusive towards women. The responsibility of an individual is also questionned, in terms of whether a person is fully responsble for the crimes they commit, or does blame also fall on their upbringing and childhood? Not only is this novel an excellent read but it also raises some thought-provoking issues. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" comes highly recommended.
I'm going to China tomorrow! I am really quite excited, though I will miss my friends a lot. Packing today has been annoying. I hate packing. However I have somewhat mastered the art of packing light, so I'm hoping that when I am travelling I won't be bogged down with too much stuff.
Tales from Earthsea is based on the fantasy world created by Ursula LeGuin, a world with wizards and dragons. The first scene shows a ship amidst a storm. From the stormclouds emerge two dragons, fighting. This is then seen as a bad omen, that the Balance of the world is collapsing.The film then tells the story of how one wizard, Sparrowhawk, sets on a quest to seek the source of the evil that is shaking "The Balance" in this world. Arren, a runaway prince who killed his father; Therru, an unfriendly yet mysterious girl; and Tenar, Therru's guardian are the other prominient characters in this film. As this film was adapted from a series of novels and short stories, there is a lot that is not explained. Throughout the film, it is easily recognisable that the author had created a very elaborate world, hardly any of which can be captured in a 2 hour long film. The animation style is signature Ghibli, very similar to that of Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke. And in line with those films, there are some scenes which are just truly amazing, such as the image of Hort town, and the end scenes with Arren and the dragon. This film was very enjoyable. And entertaining that the evil guy is a bishōnen character.
I actually want to see the disney/english dubbed version of Ponyo of the Cliff by the Sea, shortened to just Ponyo for the western audience. From the trailer, it seems that there is more emphasis on Ponyo "saving the world", instead of the emphasis on her and the boy's relationship. Anyways, that is to come. August 14th!
TRAILER HERE.
