LUOYANG TO YUNTAISHAN\ 洛阳到云台山
so the place we are staying in is in a noisy ass hutong area, really chinese ghetto, like the chinese none western version of KHAOSAN road in Thailand haha.
LUOYANG is in HUNAN province 湖南 we didnt hve a shower bathroom on arrival, its full chinese, but we switched up to a large room only 100RB a night, and it has a squat loo with a shower head over it. the next morning a tile fell on Miri's head. its ghetto....but the bed' are super comfy and the new room a decent size. the guys we askd for help for directions last night came on into the hotel...creepy the shifu got them to leave. pretty sure we are the firts foreigners to stay here.
super tired but up early 7.30 but we werent able to get our bus to yuntaishan until 9.20. a long trip of 3.5 hours, no toilet breaks either. when we arrived
the sun was out in all intensity (33') the driver lead us to our ticket office. the girls forgot their student cards, you must pay in an insurance fee, so as a student a ticket cost 125RMB it cover 2 days but we only have the one day. it borders close to SHANXI province 陕西BAOKAN reservoir area.
so many people of course, 人山人海 our last bus to the city was at 6 and it was already 2, bit of a rushed day and unfortunately not a good season to see the waterfalls as its quite dry. which really sucked! still nice scenery though~bit stressful due to the rush though. it opens from 5am, should have planned it out better. oh well, and you can even stay on the mountain
SHAOLIN WARRIORS
(unlike most tourist places in china you an get half decent food here) unless u are happy with corn cobs, cucumber, "sausages" etc
thought was a pagoda....it was nothing! just some chinese and a tree, not even a view! befriended some chinese women who were picking some flowers to eat, they can be cooked and added to dished, or used in medicine, pretty cool!
the disappointing view and tree
rushed to go see the show, miri and i rushing ahead, the doors closed behind us, the place was packed we had no seats, barely able to see, but what we did see was amazing!! somehow jimena along with fei sweet talked her way into getting let in, she even managed to et superb seats near the stage, she has skill!!
the half hour show was very impressive, mainly young boys, by the time its over however people start coming in to get good seats for the next show, we had no hope haha.
we missed our bus, getting split up, jimena was slow as usual yet somehow managed to sneak on to one of the tourist buses for the temple area, she is crazy.
however we had our bus driver co-ordinators number so he was able to get us on the next bus but lots of waiting around in the bus for about an hour.back in luoyang went back to the restaurant from the night before this time having delicious 酸辣面
LUOYANG LAODONGJIE LABOUR HOLIDAY MAY
May -June 4th
LONGMEN GROTTOES
Up early and check out for the last day, fei was complaining about his heavy
backpack but to be honest mine was the same if not heavier the rest of the
time. We got the local bus to Longmen grottoes 龙门石窟 fei did his makeup on the bus,
needless to say he got some odd looks， but it is China and not a city like shanghai. Today was not so sunny and therefore a
little cooler. its about an hour ride to the grottoes followed by a short wait and
another short free bus journey to the centre. The bus was utterly packed. When
we arrived to buy our tickets at the ticket desk we were raging to find out
that they wouldn't give us discount with our student cards as we were
foreigners, even though we are international students studying in china - so we
paid the full price of 100. Albeit a tad grumpy, we soon cheered up as the
police who greeted us in a golf buggy police car, accepted our joking offer of a lift to the
caves (a km or so walk if you don't pay for a lift) we squeezed in, was
hilarious, videos were taken, cigerettes offered, a pretend race with another
buggy, requests for kisses and a hell lot of laughter. The driver declined the
photo as he was in charge and didn't want any trouble due to badge number but
the others did, along with more cigerettes given. (like in the hotel, to the
point were I just accept them now and give them to Jimena haha,must cigerettes
unlike home are cheap, offering cigerettes, invites for dinner and baijiu is a traditional chinese form of friendship)
.
Some promotion girls came over for pictures too and gave us cute heart
balloons. The famous peonies of this season are all but gone having died out, though we could see
a few stragglers. However they had lots of fakes decorating things, so I just
had to have one...(YOiNK)
the grottoes are so very beautiful, huge and interesting. So many areas, up and down, caves walls, Buddhas in their hundreds. So amazing. Of course there was quite a few people but
was not overpacked like some places you go to, like yesterday at shaolin 人海人山 and the toilets
were decent, outside the toilet sign even have little Buddha carved into the
fake rock. Cute!
We crossed over the bridge to the other side, the first section are playing
with some adorable kids 9 [one was able to squeeze through the bars and back
again, utter cutie] was a bit of a let down. Not much to see, for instance I
climb up a huge flight of stairs only to find the Buddha unviewable as under reconstruction.
Though we started messing around and having a good laugh after. .theres stalls
with some hot foods and vegetables about but always good to prepare a little
something before.
The next section, a high climb up was a magnificent temple over looking all of
the Longmen grottoes 龙门石窟 so peaceful colourful and beautiful, lots of flowers and good luck
prayers 祝祷 some guy thought miri and i were twins again haha. The next area was
gardens, lots of different layers and areas, beautiful ponds, a tropical feel
similar to the parks in Guangzhou I felt, a nice outdoor tea area and we also
spent some time looking at the in scripted walkways, though some even fei
couldn't understand,We walked the way back just as the
rain was slowly coming on. Yet back at Luoyang city the weather was nice, we
went for food before fei had to leave, Miri and I back to our favourite cheap
local, we even dabao'd 打包 we got a photo with the waitress so cute, back in the hotel the owner
was away but his friend in charge let us chill and recharge in a room. They
were good to us, giving us hot water, boiling the kettle especially and
everything, I'd actually go there again if I were to go back. Luoyang is real
china, not rich, not built up, not overrun by foreigners. Rustic with its own
charm 魅力
the train back was
a horrid 17 hours, felt grim. No other way to describe, though got a random
cucumber slice "facial" from a 叫卖 we had nice companions for the
journey. 2 men. Though after they left we got stuck with a weird only granny,
her odd daughter and grandson who let the grandson pee in the bag and the play
with the bag wtf,,,, the woman sitting side them was not happy. Plus the train
stayed in Shanghai station before going to Shanghai west station fro like 15
mins. Wtf. Was nice to get home and get a good hot shower not standing over a
squat toilet with falling tiles haha
