My newer readers might not have been around during the establishment of my China 2002 Flashback series, which this is a continuation of. It's basically what I would have written if I had a blog back in summer of 2002, when I did a study abroad to Xi'an, China, where I met some lifelong friends and my lifelong partner in Cherrie. You can check out the rest of the series by clicking the "China" label under the "Labels" sidebar. I haven't had a chance to finish up this series, since I've been writing about other things like football and Scions and so forth. Speaking of Scions, last week's poll is complete and I have to say, wow there were a lot of haters! The most popular response, as you can see, was "Doesn't matter, they're still ugly!"
Final Results of the poll:
Do you think Scion has become stale?
Yes, they should go back to their funky roots. 2 (16%)
Nope, they're still funky, just bigger and better! 3 (25%)
Doesn't matter, they're still ugly... 5 (41%)
What is "sky-on"?? 2 (16%)
Anyhow, back on topic. With the Chinese New Year of the Rat fast approaching, I thought it would be appropriate to kickoff the Grant's Pad Slideshow with photos from my China 2002 study abroad, and then I thought it would be appropriate to finally contine on with the China 2002 Blog Series. We last left off with Part VIII: Dating, where I wrote about the womanizing exploits of Kir-Wei and myself. So, without further delay, here's Part IX!
It is now the beginning of July, and Kir-Wei, Eric, Jelani, Colin, Tom, and I decided to take a trip to the South of China, taking advantage of our program's extremely liberal schedule and taking off about two weeks.
Some fun facts about Chengdu. Like Xi'an, Chengdu is one of the ancient capitals of China - in fact, its name is more or less translated as "Becomes the Capital "in Chinese. It first served as the top city in China in the fourth century BC, during the warring states prior to the Qin dynasty. Of course, we all know that the Qin used Xi'an as its capital, so Chengdu didn't reclaim its capitalship again until the Han dynasty in about 400 A.D. Chengdu is also notable for being the birthplace of paper currency around the middle of the 10th century A.D. The reasons for Chengdu's importance can be seen by its geography and layout - it is very centrally located and one of the largest major cities in China at over 10 million population. To control traffic, it is also designed as the "perfect" city, employing a very organized hybrid grid/concentric circles system also used in other major Chinese cities such as Beijing. Even so, navigating its streets as foreigners was no easy task - we left that task primarily to the cab drivers!
Our first major stop in Sichuan was the aforementioned Qing Cheng Mountain (青城山). Qing Cheng mountain is actually divided into two parks - the main mountain and the rear mountain. The main mountain is much more popular, as its the one that is featured in TV programs and such. However, seeking a more rustic quest, we headed straight for the rear mountain. Still, the base of the mountain was teeming with tourists, food vendors, and the sort. Slightly less than halfway up the mountain, however, the human traffic dropped significantly, as we became the only signs of humanity save for the hard core mountain men that hand carried hundreds of pounds of supplies back and forth between the temple at the top of the rear mountain.
The steps were many and the sights were stunning - some four or five hours in we were already past the clouds, thanks to the steep grades. The mountain was spectacularly green - like something straight out of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. However, at some point we did get pretty tired, and pretty hungry as well. Luckily for us (especially since we had already passed all of the inns along the way and it was getting dark), there was a Daoist temple called White Cloud Temple (白云寺) at the top of the mountain, where they not only fed us some of that famous Sichuan cuisine, but they clothed us in very Kuomingtang reminiscent gear to protect us from the cold of night and rented out some quarters for us to spend the night for the equivalent of about one US dollar! How many times in your life can you claim to have camped out in a Daoist temple at the top of a mountain in China?? This was easily one of the most memorable parts of my trip.
On the way down the mountain on the second day we started down the mountain until, to our surprise, we reached a river that we had to cross. Fortunately, there was a ferry and we didn't have to back track all the way back up to the temple and go down the way we came. Several miles later, our American spoiled butts took the easy way out and took the cable cars down to get a birds eye view of the Green City (which, in case you were wondering, is what Qingcheng translates to).
At this point, we took a look at our goals. Eat World Famous Sichuan Cuisine? Check. Climb a famous Kung Fu Mountain and stay at a Daoist Temple at the top? Check. Pandas? Not yet! For our last stop in Chengdu, we headed to the creepily named Chengdu Giant Panda Research Facility.
To our relief, this was not some animal testing factory where baby pandas were harvested for their bamboo-shoot enriched coats - it was actually a huge, state of the art natural habitat that bred and cared for the world's largest population of giant pandas in captivity in hopes of boosting their natural population. Turns out that pandas are some of the dumbest mammals in the world, and as such, struggle to survive due to their picky appetites and stupidity (they often don't recognize their own offspring and, as a result, many baby pandas are left to die on their own or even flat out killed by their stupid parents!). We toured the facility, and we also had our photos taken with a baby panda for a modest price of about 12 US dollars!That concluded the first leg of our trip to Southern China. Next stop, Shanghai! And we would go there in style, taking a real plane instead of a train! Make sure you check out all the photos of our trip to Sichuan in Tom's Chengu Photo Album and my own personal collection!
Stay tuned for the next segment of our backpacking journey in China!
Cherrie in her commencement robes
Dinner at World Beat Cafe, kind of like dimsum but with western cuisine, substantially more money, and substantially smaller portions...
Lobster Car
Curious George at Universal Studios. George must be a Gator, because he/she struck a Heisman pose upon seeing our Gator gear.
Doc. This guy was pretty cool - he saw Ed's Kung Fu club shirt and asked us about our martial arts. Turns out he met Lee Siu Hung, the current owner of the Lee Koon Hung Kung Fu School down in Fort Lauderdale (which was the school that our own sifu went to before he started teaching!)
Ridin' in a fake Volkswagen in front of a fake vista... looks pretty real though doesn't it?
Jaws
NASCAR edition Toyota Camry
Gate at Islands of Adventure
Dinosaur! RAWR!!
Happy Gump!
Old Capital Building
Dolphins
International Space Station
FSU's famous Clown School
Conquering Chief Osceola at Doak Campbell Stadium with the mighty Gator Chomp!
Suppressing those crazy G-forces...
One of the Flying Tigers that fought over Taiwan in WWII
All systems are Go!
Aviators from four eras