Loving Sichuan - The Opera, Panda's, and the Biggest Buddha in the world!!!

For those who know me, I really love Sichuan style beef when I go to Chinese restaurants in the US. This trip, I had a chance to have REAL Sichuan style food! We had quite a lot packed into a small space for this one, so here we go.

Our plan was to go to Chengdu in the Sichuan province overnight to mid-afternoon (this is a long train ride!), walk around and see simple sights, eat Hot-Pot,

then go to sleep. The next morning is where the fun was to begin. We were to wake up early in the morning and go see the Giant Panda's at a reserve,

then travel to a mountain nearby and see the biggest Buddha in the world.

We were then to take a train back home at that point.

That was MOSTLY how it happened. We added going to the Sichuan Opera (AWESOME)

and a funky Chinese-style variety show (LAME).

So, here it is.

We finished our classes at 7:30 pm and caught our train at around 8:30 pm (Yeah, we were cutting it close..). Once on the bus we were greeted very warmly by a group of, what we found out later, academics who were on a 40 hour train ride! They greeted us warmly because it was the Mid-Autumn festival (pretty much everyone gives out and eats interesting little pastries called "MOON CAKES".), and they had been drinking a little handing out moon cakes. They gave us one and they had an egg yoke in them! They weren't bad, I must say. Anyway, it was a sleeper, so not much happened that needs to be on this blog. I slept fairly well on this train and woke up ready for the day. It was a nice morning, waking up with the Sichuan province outside my window for me to look at. There are many mountain villages and farmlands in this region. It was a nice ride.

We arrived in Chengdu (A city of about 9 million people) and were picked up by the hostel we were going to stay in that night. We went directly to the hostel and booked our next day's trips, and decided to go to the opera as well. We traveled by bus around the town for a little while then decided to go set our mouths on fire with the "Hot-Pot" experience. If you have ever had hot food before, this was hotter!! The picture below is of the pot.... notice all of the hot peppers!!

The food was very good, it is just that my lips went numb from the heat!

We then boarded a mini-van with two other people from the hostel, Kobe and Steve (hello guys!).

They ended up bring pretty cool guys from Israel that we ended up hanging around with for the night. We arrived at the tea house where we would watch the opera. It was a pretty groovy building that was semi-outside. It had walls and a ceiling, but they weren't attached to each other, giving the room an open vibe. There were people trying to sell us stuff at very high prices, so we didn't buy anything. I did get to take some groovy photos of the performers before the show, however.

The show was great, There were dancers, singers, martial arts and fire breathing, Hand puppets, comedy, and music.

It was a very good night. I have good video of it.

Steve, Kobe, Jim and I then went to a Russian/Chinese variety show. It was an experience, but certainly not a big deal. We were laughing at how dumb most of the acts were.

So, the next morning, we left early to see the Panda's. They are at a reserve near the city, and we went at feeding time (which was when they were most active, obviously). We were able to see about 20 Panda's in all, including newly born Panda's (we weren't allowed to take pictures of them) and red panda's. It was fun to see them in the habitat. I have a picture of one Panda that looks drunk...

Anyway, we left there and met some new friends that were in our panda tour, Bart and Elaine. They were going to Le Shan, the 230 foot "Biggest Buddha in the world" which is where we were off to next, so we went together. They were from Belgium, where Bart is a train engineer. Nice guy.

So, the Dafo (Great Buddha) was HUGE!

first, you walk up the side of a mountain, passing by many sculptures and monuments. Then you are standing at the head, and expected to walk STRAIGHT DOWN A CLIFF!!! It is crazy! It was pretty cool to see. At the feet were some very kind monks (by the way, monks don't really want their picture taken at these places. They are fairly adamant about it.) and an amazing view of the Dafo. Look it up on the internet, you'll see what I mean. Also, I have lot's of pictures and video that you'll want to check out. The you have to walk BACK UP another set of stairs... ALOT OF STAIR WALKING!! Anyway, it was well worth it.

That was pretty much it.

We then went to the airport, where we flew back home to get to our classes the next morning on time!