Day 2 Felix drove us around in his father's Jeep Cherokee! Which saved us a great deal of money and time... Felix got his license recently and so he taught me a little bit about the way getting your license works in China. In China to get your license you don't have to take a driving test but a detailed written test right down to questions of mechanics to naming the different parts under the hood! Also the rules of the road, at least from my perspective, are radically different from America. You can pass whenever you want as long as you beep your horn and let the person know.In fact it seems that the general rule is to try to beep the horn as much as possible in order to let everybody know where you are. Also later that day I would find out first hand how an accident is handled, when Felix got in a little Fender bender trying to get out of the parking lot. At first it seemed like he was going to try pretend like nothing happened and just drive off; until the guy from the other car came running up to him and shouting at him in Chinese. Though most of the time I was clueless as to what was going on, I spoke to Felix afterwards and he explained to me in English that the person we hit was wanting 200 RMB (about 27 US) for the damage to his van. But, the cop agreed on 100 RMB (about 13 US) and Felix paid the man and everything was settled right there and then.
On Tuesday we went to the 3 towers and the temples, here is the view of the three towers
from the outside. These towers as well as the temples are all symbols of Buddhist worship, these in the past were the places of worship for royalty. However, now it is a park.
Here is the sign at the entrance to the park. Though I'm not quite to the point yet where I can tell you what it says I know the last two big characters are 三 San, which is 3, and the last one is 塔 ta, which is pagoda or tower. If you can read the rest of the characters and let me know I will add it here and put your name in my blog! (These characters were translated by...) - your name could be there!
Here is the towers from the inside of the park along with a mob of people. This week is one of the few weeks of the year where just about everybody does not have to go to work. Thus everybody is traveling and the sites are crowded.
Theres the 三 中国 牛仔 san zhong guo niu zai, or the three Chinese cowboys, in front of the three towers!
China has some of the coolest signs in English! This is the first one I've put up so far but theres certainly more to come! In case you can't read this one it says "The unselfish human world of flowers and plants is in love."
When asked Leo and Felix claim to be Buddhist because they have both grown up in Buddhist homes where that was all that they knew. We saw maybe twenty different Buddhist temples where at each one Leo and Felix both bow downed to worship idols of many different kinds, as is the tradition. They also lighted incense and even paid money to worship the Buddhist Gods.
Leo is crazy
This was the largest temple we saw and holds the most important of the God's in Buddhism. After him comes the fat Buddha that we so often see.
Here is the bathing Buddha...
This was the last temple which actually had a second story with stairs and a pretty cool view.
Well that was Day 2 of Dali, keep a look out for day 3 in our climatic trip to the famous mountains of Dali!
