Dali: Day 3

Day 3 we went up the mountains, thank God we didn't actually have to hike but we got to ride the convenient Ski Lift. Here is Felix!
















Here is the view obviously from the sky lift.
















And this is from the top of the mountains!











Once at the top of the mountain there were once again several temples for worship. At one of the temples I was nearly coaxed into giving money to the temple. As I was standing outside watching Felix and Leo do there thing bowing down to the 圣像 or shengxiang (icons). One of the monks started waving to me from inside the temple to come in. Out of curiosity I went just to see what he wanted thinking maybe he would teach me something about Taoism. When I went in he had me sign my name on a piece of paper and then next to it he wrote down "200" and then took a red stamp had me breath on it and then he stamped it and proceeded to point to a box for me to put 200 kuai in about $27 USD. After that I just got up and left and he chased me out the door saying for good luck for good luck. Though I wish I could have said something to him, all I knew to say was 不要谢谢！Bu yao xie xie or don't want thank you.



Once again Leo is crazy!















































I love this sign! Especially since there were several places were there was big chunks of fence missing and even sometimes sidewalk. And right on the other side would be a sheer cliff! Somehow we made it back though...





























This little cave was right over a huge cliff. Mostly made out of rocks that were covered in moss from all the moister in the air that day. The only way in is on these two slippery and narrow strips of rock over a cliff!










Here again Leo shows that he is indeed crazy. This is inside the cave where there was steep and narrow stair case that goes up to a little opening at the top. The stairs were maybe big enough to put one foot down on a step at a time. With the fact that everything was too slippery it wasn't the best idea. One mistake and you end up like the guy in the sign!







The entire walk was 6 Kilometers down and about 8 back. Reason being is that we had to catch our bus back to the school and were running back and happened to run right past the exit and kept going...












It was certainly worth the walk though with the great view of Dali, er hei lake and the waterfall at the very top! It was certainly good ending to a good trip. I was also able to get to know Leo and Felix really well and we have been meeting once a week to study together ever since the Dali trip!

Dali: Day 2

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!

Dali: Day 1

After English Corner Saved my life and I was finally able to get into my apartment. The next day we set off for Dali! Dali is a very famous city in the Yunnan Providence, about 300 years ago the Dali Kingdom covered the entire providence of Yunnan and even parts of Vietnam. Now whats left of it is a preserved historical city, with a lot to do and plenty of good sites. From where we are its about six hours by bus to Dali, so we took a one hour bus to Kunming and five hour bus ride from Kunming to Dali.


We Spent the first day venturing into the Ancient city of Dali, here on the left is the South gate.




I went he wo de hao zhong guo pengyou Leo and Felix. (With my good Chinese friends) Leo I had met at English corner on campus and Felix I met through Leo since he is Leo's roomate. It really was because of Felix that we went on this trip on the first place since he is a native from Dali. We owe a lot to Felix since he showed us around the city and also helped us save a lot of money. Not to mention the fact that his family bought us dinner twice and put us up in a Hotel room the last night.









On the left is Felix and on the right is Leo.









Here is another important Person I have named the boat lady. Every where we went this lady followed us through the entire Ancient city of Dali trying to sell us a boat trip to some Island somewhere.









After Leo stopped stealing hats from little boys we decided we needed to go get our own Chinese Cow Boy Hats!







Here is me standing in front of the entrance to foreigner street.




















The characters read yang ren jie or westerner/foreigner street.












Here is the view from the North gate over looking the temples and the mountains.
















What can I say! Just look at those cool guys!













Here is a view of Er Hei Lake also from the North Gate!










































































So that was Day 1 at Dali in a Nut Shell, Day 2 we went to the 3 pagodas and the temples that are in the picture above, but that will be another post!