Our weekends were burnt by heading out to visit two famous peaks in 四川, 乐山 and 峨眉山. These two peaks are famous for their significance to Buddhism and many people actually visit them to offer prayers.
The first day was spent heading to 乐山. The main attraction for this mountain was a giant Buddha that is craved out of the mountain face, 乐山大佛. The statue is really huge! I mean huge! huge! I have no idea how did man even crave such out such an enormous mountain face, what an amazing feat! However, apart from the giant Buddha, the place had relatively nothing fancy to visit and it was quite a boring trip.
After that, we headed for dinner which was located at the foot of 峨眉山. The meals that day have been terrible, they all taste weird and I totally lost my appetite to eat the whole day. Dinner was settled quickly since no one really enjoyed the food, and we went to catch another Sichuan performance. This performance was similar to the one we caught at Chengdu previously, but some said the performance here was much better, though I do not really see any difference. Checking in to the hotel after the performance brought as to a very weird place. The hotel rooms looked very sleazy and the location of the hotel felt as though that we were in the "red light" district. The bathroom was separated from the beds by a mere piece of frosted glass, how comfortable would our bath be? Anyway, I felt that the day was really boring and we could have better spent the time elsewhere. Perhaps even interacting with the students in school would be more enjoyable than this.
The next morning was totally waking up from the wrong side of bed. The breakfast was very plain and simple with not much of taste in the food. However, when we headed up 峨眉山 after breakfast, it totally brought as a different feel. The journey up to the peak was quite troublesome, having to switch between bus and cable car and having to go on foot. The fun part was when we reached the peak. Up on the peak was a giant gold Buddha statue, shimmering and shining in the sunlight. This presented a very good photo opportunity and it really made the climb up worth it. However, the weather was not very cooperative and the clouds kept rolling in and obscure our view of the statue, making photo taking very difficult. At the peak, I said a few wishes for someone, as I promised to do so and after that we headed down to half-peak for lunch.
Lunch at half-peak was awesome, we had for the first time, FRESH FISH! All previous meals with fish turned out to be not fresh, many of us took the opportunity and clear the dish. After lunch, I picked up a stuff toy for one of the staff at the saloon and we proceeded to take cable car to visit another temple. After that, we headed down 峨眉山 and we went to Chengdu for dinner before returning back to the campus.
No comments:
Post a Comment