Luoyang

Our trip to Luoyang has been short, but sweet, and salty, steamed and fried, and generally delicious!  Our plan for this area was to go see the Longmen Caves and the Shaolin Temple, we detoured slightly.

We arrived Saturday morning, and the train ride here was fantastic in comparison to the last.  We got on the train, we fell asleep and got off the train.  Wonderful!  We took a short, indirect (the street signs in China seem to be haphazardly placed) walk to our hostel, checked in, showered up, and got onto bus no. 81 to the Longman Caves.  The caves/grottoes are a series of carvings which were founded by an Indian monk.  They are separated into the west and east sides by the river. The caves on the west side are pretty cool and house one of the largest carved Buddha's in the world.  Her/His earlobe alone is supposed to be almost 200 m.  There were three major caves which were quite phenominal.  For some reason however, which we never did find out, a lot of the carvings are missing faces.  It looks as if someone deliberately broke them off.

(Not too sure what type of deity or Buddha he's supposed to be here.)

(I think this is the pose for the Budhavista of Mercy, but I'm not sure.)

The east side of the river had a bit of a different feel to it.  Both sides were fairly restricted with railings stopping you from going into the caves, but the east side also restricted any pictures as well.  Not only were there railings, but each of the carvings were barred off like a prison cell.  Also, the east side smelled unexplicably like cucumber (certainly not the worst smell in the world).  The east side also housed one of the temples, but I think by the time we made it over to that side, we were pretty exhausted.  It was a beautiful hot day, but we had already spent almost two hours on the west side of the river.

Once we got back to our hostel, we napped (of course) and walked a little way down an alley between our hostel and the bus station.  We had stumbled here earlier for breakfast and found a noodle place, and thought we might venture here for dinner.  Turns out, in the evenings, the little alley comes alive with street food vendors.  One of our favourites so far in the street food market, are these pancake/crepe type things which are have a thin layer of egg (I think), and some you can also get

with green onion.  They are delicious, and so cheap.  For half of one, and they are huge, was 2-3 RMB.  (Definitely stopping by for breakfast before the train tomorrow.)  There are also these other things, which are like a wrap, but folded with green onion, eggs and noodles, which you can also get in a fried version, also delicious.  And, of course, there is a pluthera of meats and kabobs to choose from, pork being the most popular (and the easiest to identify with its pig face staring at you).  There's also a pluthera of fried fish, and whole fried/roasted birds (baby ones), a few escapees of which we saw earlier in the day and were admiring (unaware that they would become someone's dinner).  Fish, pork, and chicken/bird is the most discernible of the meat, and probably the safest.  When you see a cat tied up with a massive bowl of fish parts to feed on, right beside the guy selling unidentifiable grilled something or other, you really have to wonder what he's grilling (or maybe it's obvious).

There's also like a fast food version of Hot Pot in these markets as well.  You'll stumble upon a vendor, who has a giant skillet in front of him, as well as a pluthera of meats and vegetables.  You point and pick, he cooks, and away you go with your paper bowl!  It's fantastic and a little classy.  Usually you just walk away with your noodles/soup in a plastic bag.  Right before our wonderful alley of street food, is a huge outdoor hot pot restaurant.  A little less classy than the one in Beijing, this place has a series of tables with holes in the tops and propane tanks at the bottom.  You get a metal pot of broth and all your fixins, and you're good to go.  On the walls inside, they had posters with predesigned meals and prices.  Each poster had a picture of an animal, and a picture of a hot pot-like meal.  The animals varried: one had a rooster, another a goat, one a bunny rabit, a lamb, a cow, a pig, and of course, a dog-- pretty sure it was some sort of lab.  Each of the animals in the posters were cute and alive and in full colour.  The dog and bunny looked more like pets than food for sure, at least to us.

By the way, we didn't end up going to the Shaolin Monastery.  The more we heard about it, the less inclined we were to go.  The place is apparently one large tourist destination, over priced and over crowded.  Even as we got off the train we were bombarded with people soliciting us to take a bus tour to the monastery.  It has little/no authentic appeal apparently, since it was burnt down during the cultural revolution, and only recently rebuilt once they realised they could profit from it.  It fetches quite a hefty price, so we opted out.  Aside from a demonstration or two, most of the monastery apparently consists of shops and monks who aren't really monks.  We did however get a little kung fu show with dinner.  While we were waiting for our food, some local children seemed to be practicing for their Kung Fu debut.  They were pretty cute.  The four of them would pair up, two against two, and get all ready with their poses, and then just start running at eachother and punching and kicking eachother.  Not pretending, but actually beating eachother.  Then they'd stop, all make disgusted faces at the pain they had just endured, look as though they were going to cry, and do it all over again.  It was hilarious!  This went on for quite some time and provided ample entertainment before dinner.

Earlier today, since we didn't go to the temple, we went shopping (of course).  Another local market, which the receptionist called the "Old Market" but which sold mostly clothes.  Well, I thought the Silk Market was cheap!  Man!  You can't really bargain here, but you don't really need to either.  Darren picked out a cute jumper style dress for me, and it was only 45 RMB.  I've also been searching everywhere for a nice vest, finally found one (they were everywhere here) and it was only 35 RMB- that's almost half of what I ended up paying for most of my clothes at the Silk Market.  Needless to say, nothing we purchased at this "Old Market" was "old".

So with a little bit more shopping, and a lot more eating done, next stop is Xian.  We're pretty excited for the Terracota warriors, and History Museum sounds amazing too.  We'll keep ya posted!

(PS- Having some serious issues uploading photos.  The rest wont attach properly, including the coolest Buddha one, so this will have to do.  You can check out the slideshow at the bottom of the page for the rest.)