Friday, April 13, 2018

Qing Ming Festival. Day 2 - Yangtze River, Fengdu and Shi Bao Zhai Temple

We were up bright and early to meet our group to go to Fengdu, also known as "The Ghost City."  It was a very rainy morning.  We were prepared for the rain with our raincoats and umbrellas, but in the end they seemed almost ineffective against the heavy rain that we experienced that morning.  Eventually, we took off our raincoats because they we were just too hot, and just used the umbrellas.

Wet, rainy, dippy start to the day.
There are a LOT of steps at Fengdu.  It is mountainous country, so it is all lot of up and down.  I think the guide told us that there were around 195 steps up to see the sights we were going to see.  It is nicknamed, "Ghost City" because they believe that this is where you have to pass by the guards to heaven and hell when you die. 

This guy and his companion below greet you at the gate of the stairway going up.

If you look close, you can see that he is missing some of his fingers.  I wondered who had bitten them off.  Styrofoam doesn't taste good.

This guy greets you at the gates of heaven.  It would scared the bad out of me...

This one greets you at the gate of heaven.  He doesn't want you going in with any of your bad traits.

When you cross over this bridge that everyone is lined up to cross, with the one you love, it is supposed to seal your union forever.  With the rain, we decided that if nothing had broken us up in 42 years, crossing a bridge wasn't going to change anything.  Just didn't think it was worth going back out in the rain to do it. 

At least we were dry inside this temple as long as you stayed out of the center part.


An interesting tree that was growing around another tree.  David pointed it out, so I took it's picture so he could always remember it.  (he, he)
When the Three Gorges Dam was built, a lot of these places had to be moved to higher ground to be preserved.  The statues and buildings were  brought up and placed in new buildings that looked like the old buildings.  This particular place is based on the Taoism religion.  It has a lot of thoughts about how you have to pass by certain gods in order to go to a better place.  They really look very frightful and scary. 

David and I were tired and didn't want to climb anymore, so we told the group leader that we were going to go down and wait for the rest of our group at the visitor center.  The whole time the rain hardly let up.  It was really kind of miserable.
I could probably make up a story about why this guy is in the temple because I don't remember, but he was kind of cool looking.
When we arrived at the visitor center, we found some seats where we thought we would be seen when they came.  While we were waiting, I wanted to take a picture of this magnificent wood carved monument to Fengdu.  There were five Chinese tourists who were trying to take a group photo, and they looked like they wanted to have someone take a photo.  I offered to take it for them.  Then I continued to take photos of the wood monument.  When I came around to the other side again, the women of that group decided they wanted a picture with me at the monument.  We had a group photo,then each woman wanted a photo separately with me. 

After we had lunch at the ship, there was a silk embroidery demonstration at the shop on the boat that I wanted to go to.  Two of the women that went were from our BYU group and we introduced ourselves to some of the women we sat near.  The woman next to me was from Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England.  Penny was so fun to sit next to!  We kept joking with each other and had a fun time.  We kept talking after the demonstration was over and got to know each other.  We seemed to have a lot in common in our life experiences.

The afternoon excursion was to an ancient pagoda called "Shi Bao Zhai."  It was build high in a mountain top so that it wasn't necessary to move, however, the waters of the rising Yangtze River did threaten to flood it.  The have built a high wall around the base to prevent it from being flooded in the future.  The path to get to the temple is now underwater, so they build a swinging bridge for people to cross on to visit the pagoda. They also dub it the "drunken bridge."  That is how you feel as you cross this bridge to get to the temple. It sways and moves, and it is so easy to lose your balance.
You see what I see?  I always knew it!! Ha!!

Since David and I have visited this site before, we crossed the bridge and then went back across because we knew that this was probably one of the best places to buy items that we wanted.  Those merchants were sure happy to see us!  We walked along and looked at things we were interested in, bargained and bargained.  It was rather fun.  When we noticed that the others from our group were coming through the street, so we had to say good-bye to all the fun we were having.

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