Day 2

So after discovering that sending group emails is very time-consuming and repetitive, I have decided to start a blog and I hope you all enjoy it. Today we woke up and had breakfast. Then we got on a bus to go to Dujiangyuan, the birth of Taoism. There were many beautiful temples. Everything seemed so old, there is nothing like this in the US. It is also the site of a famous irrigation system that was created 2000 years ago by a Chinese emperor of Shu state called Li Bing. The river used to flood all of Chengdu valley before this was created and now provides irrigation for the whole valley. It has a part called Fish Head (Yu Tou) that splits the river into the outer channel and the inner channel. The bottom water and rocks and sand go into the outer river and the water that will be used for irrigation goes into the inner river. The inner river then has a spill way that can drain excess rocks and/or water if the water is high. It is ingenious construction and amazing to see. At the temples there were these candles that you could use to light 3 large incense sticks which you would take and bow 3 times in front of the Taoist statue and make a wish.

Then after lunch we went to Qingcheng Shan (Mount Qingcheng) which is also very important in the Taoist Culture and had many beautiful temples. A Sichuan student called Yu shen (Eugene in English) and I hiked all the way to the top. It was stairs all the way up, which was weird. We took a different way down and had to take a boat across a lake to get home. Everything was very touristy and they hired people to dress like Taoists and carry people up the mountain. There was also a cable car/ski lift thing you could pay to take to the top.

For dinner we went and ate something called Huo guo, or hot pot. It is like spicy fondue with lots of weird things you cook in it. I have already tried chicken feet (today at lunch) which were not as bad as I thought, but still nothing I want to repeat. There were also many things at dinner i didn't care to try, like cow stomach and whole little minnows. But I have tried alot of other things. There was a whole bowl of MSG on the table too. It is everywhere here. I am not enjoying the food as much as I was the first day, but it is very interesting. I wish I would just have a chance to settle in, but tomorrow is another crazy day. We wake up and will have our medical exam and register for classes. Then we have some errands to run and in the evening we will leave for Yangjuan for a week.