Skincare, Maiji Shan - and a few snapshots.

Saturday August 14, 2010

OK, so I promised some images of the Fu Xi temple, so here they are. Firstly, a couple of pictures of Fu Xi himself, one from the murals in the temple, and one of the main image:

 

The Dragon Horse is also impressive, so I can’t leave him out:

On to today. I woke up this morning in my somewhat grim hotel in Qinzhou (or Qincheng, my taxi driver said that both names will suffice, which is confusing – here is a town split into two parts, each ten miles from the other, and one part has two equally good names…) to the sound of speakers being tested and the sight of banners fluttering past my window. Aha, I thought. They are setting up for a local music festival. And I thought perhaps I should stay around in that part of town if there was a bit of culture to be had. But when I put my glasses on, I realised that it was not a music festival. It was a washing machine festival. Folks were unloading gleaming washing machines into little tents marked with the names of famous manufacturers. This decided it for me: I did not want to be kept awake the coming night by a washing machine festival. So I hopped into a taxi and headed down to the more down-at-heel Beidao, where I’m staying in the very reasonable Dong An hotel, and have the luxury of an internet broadband connection, which is allowing me to catch up on phone calls and so on.

Having checked in here and bought some good fresh bread from the market for breakfast, I headed up to Maiji Shan mountain, some twenty miles or so out of town. Maiji Shan has some of the finest rock-cut Buddhas in China; unfortunately, it was also closed, as the recent rains have raised safety concerns. But the large, rambling botanical gardens were lovely, with lots of paths through the forest:

For the rest of the day, I’ve been exploring Beidao, which I quite like. This evening I was apprehended in the street by some sellers of skincare produces for the lady in my life, as these people always put it when they do the same thing back home. The resulting conversation gathered quite a crowd of curious onlookers. Shortly after, I took refuge in a local restaurant, ordered some mixed vegetables that came with a generous but unwelcome sprinkling of strips of liver, and returned to the hotel to do a bit more writing. Tomorrow I’m still not sure what to do – whether to go to Water Curtain Cave – a somewhat long trip – or whether to stay closer to home and explore a few more places are Tianshui, including the nearby Guatai Shan – a mountain that is associated with the wearer of leaves himself. I’ll see how I feel, and when I manage to wake up, tomorrow morning.

 


 


 

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