Cheng du, China

I guess I'm pretty late for updating my blog. Sorry for that. I had been busy to settle my work load after 1 week of holiday off to China. This time I was off to Cheng du, situated in the state of SiChuan. Cheng du is known for being the town of relaxing lifestyle, the place is famous for its love for mahjung and not forgetting ladies are very well treated here. With some introduction of the city by our tour guide, Cheng du spend most of its days in a gloomy environment, surrounding by mountain and the by the valley, the weather is cloudy and hazy for 300+ days in a year. The sun is rarely a visitor there, so sometimes, dogs even bark when they see the sun as they hardly see one. Strange huh, I guess there is always some weird happening around hehe...

As part of the SiChuan, Cheng du is well known for it's spicy food as well as the SiChuan opera, panda reservoir and not forgetting the jiuzai which house the breath taking landscape ever. I was fortunate to be going this trip with my parents. Although the trip was tiring but it was a memorable one, with all the photos that I had took, I guess I would remember the sceneries foremost. The culture, people, food and lifestyle - unbelievable

My first dinner in Cheng du really gave me an unforgettable experience where people really eat a lot. We were introduced to Cheng du snacks which comprise of a few cold dishes like spicy cucumber, duck, tofu skin, liang fen (kuey tiaw like dish with spicy sauce), warm dishes dumpling, french fries, tofu fa, tang yuan, nian kao, kung pau chicken and etc... It's like easily 15 dishes. We were stuffed but still haven't get used to the cold dishes though, the warm dishes wasn't really hot as we expected, but truly spicy.

The Food

After dinner... *burp.... Excuse Me

2nd day starts with a journey to Emeishan and Leshan. Before reaching Leshan, we went to visit a jade factory which sold one of the rare red jade which is only available at the area. We were introduce to an animal called, Pixiu (貔貅) originally known as Pi Xie (辟邪); to avoid evil spirits. This chinese mythical hybird creature considered to be a very powerful protector to practitioners of feng shui. It resembles a winged lion. Pixiu is an earth and sea variation, particularly an influential and auspicious creature for wealth. It is said to have a voracious appetite towards only gold and silver. Therefore traditionally to the Chinese, Pixiu has always been regarded as an auspicious creature that possessed mystical power capable of drawing Cai Qi (財氣 wealth) from all directions. There is a specific way of touching the creature and bring good luck.

The Leshan Giant Buddha (乐山大佛) was built during the Tan Dynasty. It is carved out of a cliff face that lies at the confluence of the Minjiang, Dadu and Qingyi rivers. The stone sculpture faces Emeishan, with the rivers flowing below his feet. It is the largest carved stone Buddha in the world and one of UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. I was only able to use a compact camera to capture the huge sculpture as I was locked in with my macro lens. Thought the boat will be far away from the sculpture. T_T. But I was able to grab some pics at Emeishan, a short climb through forest track to a temple on the mountain truly peaceful and relaxing.

Pics taken while waiting for boat to Leshan

Local Market around the corner








Mount Emei

The cloudy weather in the whole trip is truly a challenge to get the pics right. There are more photos in my flickr. I'll update on my trip to JiuZhaiGou which was labeled as one of the UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992. Stay tune!