Lizhuang and Happy Halloween

We left Zigong after only one day. My only regret is leaving a fabulous restaurant that we found in Zigong by pure happenstance. We were walking up the main street, which was devoid of eating establishments, wondering what to do. I decided to stop someone and ask. An older woman looked promising, and I startled her when I asked her in my limited Chinese where we could find a restaurant. She then startled me by saying that I could talk to her in English if I wanted. (She had studied English in school, and then learned more from her American ex-boyfriend.) So, we walked and talked as she took us several blocks up the hill, turned left went down a bit and then turned right again. She found us a restaurant for eating goat, another for eating rabbit (a local specialty), and a hot pot restaurant. I suggested chicken and she started asking around. Across the street from the rabbit restaurant, she found us a place that would serve chicken, not spicy. We thanked her, she left, and we sat down to eat. What chicken! They made us diced chicken with some thick green vegetable (not quite celery but something similar) with garlic and ginger. The chicken was moist and slightly sweet. Wow. We also ordered a fish soup, which freaked out Ella when she saw two whole fish in it (dead, not swimming around). The fish soup was good, but not as good as the chicken. One of our best meals so far.

This morning we came to Yibin, just an hour south of Zigong where the Min and Jinsha Rivers merge to become the Yangzi. Once here, it took us some time to find the hotel as Lonely Planet’s description was not correct. In fact, we had to ask someone where the hotel was. He tried to find it on his smartphone, ended up in a discussion with another guy, and this second guy walked us back up the street until we found it. It is quite nice a business style hotel with a large room, two big beds, private bath, etc., all for $25. Worth the search.

We got two quick beef noodle soups (Ella really likes these now), and took a bus to Lizhuang, a small town about 19 km up the Yangzi. Lizhuang has a beautifully preserved old town with cute streets, 

 
narrow lanes, 

small palaces, 

reconstructed towers (destroyed during the Cultural Revolution), 

and a lovely riverside location. 

During World War Two (the War of Japanese Aggression), Tongzi University moved here from Shanghai to escape the Japanese. Several buildings had museums dedicated to that era.

We returned to Yibin for dinner and for our celebration of Halloween. We bought lots of little candies over the last few days in anticipation of the big night. 

 Ella came up with the plan: I hid the candies in the hotel room and the kids came in from the hall saying, “Trick or Treat?” and searched for the candy, 

 which could be anywhere. 

 Afterwards, we had a small party. These cakes looked great but tasted terrible. 

 No Beals Street, but a Halloween that we will always remember.

Zigong

Today we are in Zigong, an old salt mining town, but we didn’t go and see the salt museum. The kids weren’t interested. I can’t say I blame them. I would have liked to see it, but I’m not sure they would have appreciated a special stop to see a 20 cm diameter hole, even if it is above a 3,000 foot artesian salt well. Alas.

Zigong is also known for being the site of one of the largest dinosaur finds in the world. The kids enjoyed this stop. 

  

 They have a great collection of complete dinosaur skeletons, but I thought the best part was the room over the original discovery where you could see tons of fossils still in situ. 

  

Quite an amazing museum in the middle of nowhere with almost no visitors. There were also creatures roaming outside, 

 but we don’t think they are as scientifically interesting. 

On the way back to the local bus, we came across a row of people selling yazi, a large grapefruit-like fruit with a tough skin and inedible fibrous dividers inside. 

So, we bought one. I am still trying to finish eating it!

Bifengxia Panda Sanctuary

Today we took a day trip to Bifengxia, outside of Ya’an which is, in turn, two hours for Chengdu. We got an early start and arrived at Ya’an at 10:30 and at Bifengxia about 11:15. We then found out that the Panda Sanctuary was closed from 11:30 until 1:30, so we had some lunch before heading to the preserve. One can take a bus there from the ticket office, but we decided to take the scenic route, through the Bifengxia, or Blue Mountain Canyon. This meant starting by taking an elevator down 50 stories to the ravine base. 

 The gorge is, well, gorgeous, with waterfalls, small

 and large, 

 a few hanging coffins, 

 and a lot of stairs. 

 After 90 minutes, we arrived at the panda base. There were only a few pandas out for viewing, but they were very cute. One guy was so close that we could hear him/her chewing.

 Two other guys were rolling around with each other. 

 It was nice that Bifengxia wasn’t touristy (in fact, there were very few tourists there), but there also wasn’t as many pandas to see. One whole enclosure area was empty and there were no signs telling us not to bother walking over there.

We didn’t get back to Chengdu until 7, so it’s another late evening. Tomorrow we leave Chengdu to head for southeastern Sichuan Province.

Pandas

Today we saw China’s most famous animal: the giant panda. We went to the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base in the north of Chengdu, an easy trip using two public buses. 

 They have separate areas for adult pandas, young pandas, and a nursery. We saw pandas eating bamboo, two pandas playing, and a panda lounging in a tree. One of the highlights was definitely the nursery where we saw six baby pandas sleeping in a crib. Adorable!

 We also went to two different red panda enclosures. The best moment with the red pandas came when we entered one area and a red panda was walking down the boardwalk with the tourists. 

 While the breeding center plays an important scientific role in propagating these endangered species, as a visitor it is basically a high quality zoo with two adorable animals to see.

After the pandas, we went to visit G-MEO, the exchange program hosted at Sichuan University that sponsored our Chinese visas. I got a tour of their facilities, 

the original building of the first dental school in China, and then the director, Jingyu Wang, and the Student Affairs director, Julius Gylys, took us out to lunch. They ordered way too much food, but it was all delicious. 

 After lunch, we left Jingyu and Julius, and went to the center of Chengdu to pay our respects to the Chairman, 
 and to visit the People’s Park, where we saw old Chinese ballroom dancing, young Chinese taking paramours boating on the small pond, some cool bonsai trees, and many tea houses. The best was the Koi Pond where the kids fed the fish out of baby bottles. 

 All in all, a great day in the city. (I also got in another nice run along the river.) Tomorrow we go on a day trip to see pandas in a more natural environment.

Leshan Buddha

The Leshan Buddha is the largest ancient Buddha in the world. (I’m not sure of the significance of the qualifier “ancient.” Is there a larger modern Buddha?) 

   To summarize, it’s big. Over 240 feet tall, 90 foot shoulder span, 22 foot long ears, and 30 foot long big toes. The Buddha was built in the 8th century overlooking the junction of three rivers in the hope of appeasing the spirits and assuring safe passage for boats on the rivers. Apparently, it helped, though that might have been because all the rocks put into the rivers altered their courses.

Leshan is a 2 hour bus ride from Chengdu, so we went just for the day. We caught a bus at the leisurely hour of 9:20. With the extra traffic, we got to Leshan at noon. We stopped for a quick noodle soup. Well, actually, two noodle soups. The first set was Sichuan style. Too hot for us. They then brought us a tame set that we could eat. After our snack, we walked up to the top of the big Buddha and then waited in line to take the long staircase down one side to the bottom platform. 

 There we could see up close how big those toes were. Look carefully at the next picture and you can see two twos above the kids’ heads.

 We didn’t stay down too long, but continued up the stair case on the other side of the Buddha. 

 From the Buddha, we took a bus across the main river to the boat terminal to catch a quick ferry ride to see the Buddha from the water. Really just an excuse to take more pictures. 

  We didn’t have a lot of time at this point, but for Ella’s sake we did detour to Zhao Family Crispy Duck. We ended up with half a cut duck in a plastic bag with plastic gloves so we could eat it with our hands. We couldn’t finish the half-duck before getting the bus back to the main bus station, but it was delicious, with sweet, tangy barbequed skin. 

The bus didn’t get us back to Chengdu until 7:30, so we had a late dinner, later showers, and really late lights out (9:45). I hope they’ll get up early enough in the morning. The pandas get fed at 9:30.

Chengdu

Today was another travel day, to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province and one of China’s largest cities. The trip was something.

We left Emma’s Hostel just past 6 am to catch the 6:30 bus. The trip was supposed to take 7 hours or so. We all slept through much of the first 1-2 hours, but once we were awake, it became clear that the driver was flying through some beautiful landscape. We were basically following a river in a deep canyon down from Songpan into the Chengdu valley. At times, we were hemmed in on both sides by impressive cliffs, turning this way and that and having improbable towns and small cities whenever there canyon widened enough to hold them. Our driver seemed to be trying to set the record for fastest trip, taking corners as fast as possible and overtaking any vehicle that we came upon. Dylan started to complain of nausea, while the man two seats in front of Dylan was spitting and then puking into the small plastic trash bin the the aisle of the bus. The kids were doing some school worksheets, but not without some nashing of teeth and wild complaining. No one was at their best. After 4 1/2 hours, we hit the main highway and the ride got much smoother, if still fast, as all the curves were straightened out with the copious use of many short and long tunnels. By noon, we were approaching the city. I let the kids watch videos on the iPods, but we were all taken aback when we arrived at 12:30 at the Chuandianzi Bus Station, only 6 hours after leaving.

The kids were starving, so I said we would find something to eat, but strangely for a Chinese bus station, there were no restaurants or even stores in sight. Only a subway entrance. So, we took the subway to the stop near the hostel. Coming up to street level, there were still no food places, so we ended up walking all the way to Mrs. Panda’s Youth Hostel, a cute little hostel tucked behind a larger and fancier hotel. We settled in to a lovely two bed room with a sparkling bathroom. (The kids are now asleep and I am writing this post sitting on the “throne” in this sparkling, and spacious I must add, bathroom.)

By now, we were all famished. We had to find food. The main bus station is right next to Mrs. Panda, so we went in that direction and found a quick  and quite tasty beef noodle soup behind it. We then got money from the local ATM and came back to the hostel to relax. I went for a lovely run along the Fu River’s urban bank, while the kids had movie time. We went to an expensive but promising Thai restaurant in front of the hostel that turned out not to be very good, only expensive. So we walked around the neighborhood until we found some fruit and sweet bread to fill their unsatisfied stomachs. Back at Mrs. Panda’s we ran into our French friends from Langmusi and Jiuzhaigou. After catching up, the kids ate some candy and went up to the room on their own while I had a beer with the Frenchies. The kids even brushed their teeth, got ready for bed, and played on their iPads while I socialized. It was so nice to have some adult company. After an hour, Ella came down to get me to come upstairs and put them to bed. I was properly chastened for staying out too long.

Tomorrow, we start sightseeing again.

Huanglong National Park

Today started early. I got up at 5:05 to get us ready to make the 6:00 bus, the only bus for the day from Songpan. It was bitter cold as we made our way to the nearby bus station. The bus left on time and the kids promptly went to sleep with their heads in my lap. The bus wound its way up a high pass, going slowly when the road became covered with a dusting of snow and ice. Snow! Uh oh. I’m glad we brought our down vests in addition to our fleeces. Once we had gone down the other side of the pass, there was no snow on the ground, only up in the mountains above. It was still cold, in the 30’s, as we shivered and had some hot boiled eggs for a small breakfast, waiting for the park to open at 8. Having eaten, we decided that we might as well go inside the park, which meant taking the gondola up to the top. You guessed it: more snow and lots of ice on the wooden path. 

 It was a beautiful morning, though, so once the sun came up . . .

Indeed, once we reached the sun, after much moaning, slipping, and complaining, it became more comfortable, and eventually even warm.

The main valley is gorgeous. There is a small stream that at times flows into a succession of pools, 

 at times a mustard green color, 

 at other times a brilliant blue, 

 often in smaller pools divided by the limestone/karst stone and the minerals precipitating from the water. 

 At times, the pools even had trees growing in them. 

 It was a remarkable place with wild shapes and formations. 

 And, of course, there were waterfalls as well. 

 
Besides the cold start, the other bother was that we had to sit around about three hours, waiting for a bus back. It was a beautiful ride back over the pass. 

 

Made it to Songpan

Wow. We’ve escaped the craziness of Jiuzhaigou. Last post had all the beautiful pictures with a small mention of the long line we needed to wait in. Let me say more. First of all, when we arrived in Jiuzhaigou two evenings ago it was already dark, about 7. We knew we were near when neon lights worthy of Las Vegas assaulted our senses. This was the town before the park. The park’s town was more of the same: bumper to bumper traffic, honking buses, lights on every building which were all advertising either a restaurant or a hotel. When we got up in the morning to walk to the park, we merged into a veritable river of people flowing toward the entrance, walking along the sidewalk with honking buses trundling past us. This is high season in Jiuzhaigou and there was no way to forget it.

When we got to the bus station this morning about 20 minutes before the day’s one bus to Songpan, we found that there were no tickets left. What to do? Some loud and “helpful” men offered to drive us to Songpan for ten times the bus price. When I demurred, they just yelled louder that we can leave if I want to pay. I spoke to the man at the bus station gate, the guy responsible for opening the gate when buses needed to enter or leave the yard. He explained, as far as I could gather, that there weren’t any other buses to Songpan, but maybe there would be a seat on a bus going in that direction. Another man asked whether I wanted to share a ride with him, but he was going to Huanglong Park, not Songpan, though in the same direction, as far as I could tell. Eventually, he left to try his luck at the station. The “helpful” men continued to yell, and after waiting fifteen minutes, the kids (read Dylan) weren’t doing so well with the waiting. I went to the men, and the price was even higher now. We were slowly bargaining, when someone yelled at me. The man at the bus station gate, with a bus waiting there. They could take us. We grabbed our bags and got on. What happened? They had one no show, and thus one empty seat. Dylan and I shared the seat, while Ella started sharing a seat with a friendly woman and ended up on a small stool in the aisle. Sitting next to me was the man wh had wanted to share a car earlier. He had the same luck we did. We took off, but where was this bus going? After a while, I read the windshield and saw that it was going to Huanglong Park. After some more searching on my phone, I figured out that it was going quite close to Songpan, only 15-20 minutes away. Perfect! In the end, they only charged me one bus ticket (reasonable since we only got one seat), making the trip only $6 including the shuttle bus to Songan. And we arrived around 10:30 am, a nice ending to a morning with lots of uncertainty.

Tomorrow, we are going to Huanglong. At the moment, we need to take the public bus. The only one leaves at 6 am. Eek. We are hoping to find some others to share a private car so we can leave at a more reasonable hour. In addition, Dylan is limping today. I think he has a pulled calf from the long walk in Jiuzhaigou. I hope he’ll be OK for another walk tomorrow.

Jiuzhaigou National Park

After a rough night in a dorm room at the hostel, a room that we shared with three young Chinese men (talking, light’s being turned on, two guys waking at 6 to catch a bus), we eventually got up, got dressed and went downstairs for breakfast which was pretty good, except when the electricity went out in the middle. By 9 we were ready to go to the park. After the fifteen minute walk there and a ten minute wait to buy tickets, we were ready for the real wait: 45 minutes in a crush of endless Chinese tourists waiting to get through the park gates and to board the bus.

The park is shaped like a big Y with the main valley splitting into two halfway up. We started on the left (east) branch and took the bus to Long Lake. This lake is about 10,000 feet high and has a “famous” cedar that only has branches on one side. 

 From Long Lake we walked back down the valley to the Five-Colored Pool. I don’t know about their counting, but the pool is stunning, with the deep blue water, the reflection of the mountain side, and the rocks seen through the crystal clear, windex-like water.

 From this point, we caught a bus back down to the junction of the Y and another bus up to the other point, the so-called Enchanted Forest. Morale was flagging, so we had a brief picnic (some boiled eggs, bananas, popcorn and cookies) before starting the walk down this valley to Bamboo Arrow Lake along miles of wooden boardwalks. 

 The main stream kept crossing the path, thin and rushing at times, broad and lazy and filled with rushes and grass at others. 

 Then came the multitude of waterfalls and shoals as the river fell over the karst rocks beneath, 

    
 interspersed with quieter pools, crystal blue, their reflections and clear bottoms giving the feeling of double exposure. 

 
  It is easy to see why Jiuzhaigou is one of Sichaun Provinces most famous sites, and why fall is high season. 

 After all the walking and jostling with the crowds, we limped out of the park, the kids got Dico’s for dinner as their reward, and we are back in the hostel, showered and in bed. The big surprise? We have the room to ourselves! Should be able to catch up on the lost sleep from last night. Too bad we have to get up early. Alas, the only bus to Songpan leaves at 7:30.

Langmusi to Jiuzhaigou

This morning we slept in late (until 9!) before getting breakfast in town and then walking to the Kerti Gompa monastery to hike into the Namo Gorge just beyond. 

 There is a small stream coming out of the gorge and there are several caves near the start. There were some students painting the scene and some monks taking a walk from the monastery. 

 There were many awesome viewpoints, especially after the gorge opened out into two grassy valleys surrounded by mountains. 

 We climbed up one side of a valley to get some good views.

  On the way back, we met a French woman hiking in. We chatted briefly, and I found out that there was a direct bus from Langmusi to Jiuzhaigou each afternoon. We were going to get up tomorrow to catch a 6:30 bus to start in that direction. The direct bus is supposedly only 5 hrs, compared with 7 1/2 hours plus waiting times for the way we were going to go. So, we made a hasty decision to leave Langmusi, and caught the bus before even having time for lunch. We just snacked on the way.
The bus trip was through high plains, over 12,000 feet, with hairy cows and some yaks grazing,
 through many Tibetan towns, through tunnels and past many grassy mountains. As night fell, we began to wind our way through a different landscape: steep mountain sides, forested slopes, rushing streams. Then we entered neon hell – the tourist towns surrounding Jiuzhaigou National Park, one of the premier tourist spots in Sichuan Province. In the morning, we will see what it is all about.