Saturday, November 18, 2006
14 November, 2006
At nine am our air tickets that we had booked with the guide on the train had arrived at the hotel as promised. We started our day at the Six Harmonies Pagoda (Liuhe). A pagoda is an architectural design that represents Chinese power and wisdom. It originated from India and normally has Buddha relics, paintings or some kind of inscription inside or on the outer walls. Therefore it is basically a religious symbol and the area we visited had one main pagoda on the hilltop named after a fairy tale story of a boy named Six Harmonies and about 100 other pagodas within the grounds. We walked around the forest and the wooded pathways and the gardens and the view would have been great if it wasn’t so cloudy. We caught the local bus back to the lake area and we walked around the other side of the lake. It was gorgeous and there were so many parks and trees and flowers. The Imperial design is so pretty and one thing is so amazing- there is Chinese music playing softly in the background in most public places. On our way back towards the city centre, we heard and watched the musical fountain. It was also wonderful. We decided at the last minute to try and squeeze in the Lingyin Temple. We thought it would just be a temple and we could see it in a few minutes- wrong! We got to the temple half an hour before closing but they sold us tickets for the park area only since the Temple was already closed. However, since we speak such good Chinese, we did not know this and we were so upset, well I was anyway. We had seen enough parks and really didn’t feel like browsing around the gardens. It was getting dark so we headed back on an extremely full bus into the city, had a Starbucks for dinner and left for the airport. We had to catch the airport bus from the city but there was no proper bus stop. So, we were not quite sure where to stand and every few minutes a different Chinese fellow would tell us to stand on a different corner. It was quite funny and we managed to get on the bus and arrived at the airport which was really modern and comfortable. We were on our way to Xian in the province of Shaanxi.
We reached our hotel after midnight and it was a budget special. Yip, another Indian shower but we were too tired to care.
At nine am our air tickets that we had booked with the guide on the train had arrived at the hotel as promised. We started our day at the Six Harmonies Pagoda (Liuhe). A pagoda is an architectural design that represents Chinese power and wisdom. It originated from India and normally has Buddha relics, paintings or some kind of inscription inside or on the outer walls. Therefore it is basically a religious symbol and the area we visited had one main pagoda on the hilltop named after a fairy tale story of a boy named Six Harmonies and about 100 other pagodas within the grounds. We walked around the forest and the wooded pathways and the gardens and the view would have been great if it wasn’t so cloudy. We caught the local bus back to the lake area and we walked around the other side of the lake. It was gorgeous and there were so many parks and trees and flowers. The Imperial design is so pretty and one thing is so amazing- there is Chinese music playing softly in the background in most public places. On our way back towards the city centre, we heard and watched the musical fountain. It was also wonderful. We decided at the last minute to try and squeeze in the Lingyin Temple. We thought it would just be a temple and we could see it in a few minutes- wrong! We got to the temple half an hour before closing but they sold us tickets for the park area only since the Temple was already closed. However, since we speak such good Chinese, we did not know this and we were so upset, well I was anyway. We had seen enough parks and really didn’t feel like browsing around the gardens. It was getting dark so we headed back on an extremely full bus into the city, had a Starbucks for dinner and left for the airport. We had to catch the airport bus from the city but there was no proper bus stop. So, we were not quite sure where to stand and every few minutes a different Chinese fellow would tell us to stand on a different corner. It was quite funny and we managed to get on the bus and arrived at the airport which was really modern and comfortable. We were on our way to Xian in the province of Shaanxi.
We reached our hotel after midnight and it was a budget special. Yip, another Indian shower but we were too tired to care.
# posted by Heidi & Richard's travels @ 3:25 AM 
