More of Central China's colorful folk.
I'm kind of reminded of that scene in Shaolin Soccer when they are having that exhibition gang and the opposition is looking at Stephen Chow's team for the first time and it's just like "who are these guys?"
He's just selling fruit but could you imagine he was the goalie of the soccer team you were playing against?
At an emperor's tomb. Qianling Tomb. Well this is the grand entrance road you had to walk to to get there.
So apparently two Feng Shui dudes were sent to go find a tomb location and they both, without any corroboration, picked this spot.
"Stone Statues of 61 Foreign Officials" oh, China. Who can top your ethnocentrism?
reminds me of the Tuscan hillside. Since I saw it sans flowers.
Into the tomb
The emperor liked his women.
There is a cross section of the above tomb.
Inside the tomb was a dark room with a big black box full of engravings. It was very poorly lit and equally disappointing. This image is taken from the replica in the adjoining museum.
No Trumpets allowed in China.
Here we are at this ridiculous structure. It really looks like something out of Avatar: the Last Airbender.
Designed by, who else? Taipei 101 and Pangu 7 architect C.Y. Lee
What- the...
I'm assuming these are different incarnations of Buddha. A lot of them seem to ride on crazy animals.
Lunch!
A Buddhist vegetarian lunch at that!
This was a piece of this super bing, eaten with a garnish of marinated (or pickled?) hot peppers.
So the story with the ridiculous building is this; this tower used to house China's most valued Buddhist relic. A bone from thee original Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama a.k.a. Śākyamuni.
Buddha treasures.
Tomb Stone Gate Slab
Fancy tea set.
More riding of the strange animals.
Oh yeah, so anyways, the story is this original tower collapsed one day. Or rather one side of it decided it wanted to visit the ground. The Chinese government restored it and decided it would be best to move the sacred relics to a new building.
Enter ridiculous building. Really, what the hell? I swear, I'm in a sci-fi movie. I guess China wins the prize for ridiculous space building. So once or twice a year, they bring this Buddha bone out for public viewing. You can see if from really far away. Except it will just look like a white dot. Ooooooh. I guess they want this place to be like the Vatican of Buddhism. Except they clearly have never been to the Vatican. Oh well. Go China.
So there are 3 other holy bone relics kept here (not in the space building). This underground chamber houses these other 3 holy but not as holy relics.
So super bing from lunch was just a warm up for the Giant Bing. Really, why would anyone make a bing that big?
"I would"
One slice is bigger than my head.
Dinner!
...at a government run restaurant? What could possibly go wrong?
Especially when I've brought a bottle of Singleton 15!
yeah, dinner was overall quite meh. The service was sooooo bad and the meal was bookended by neighboring tables swamping us with cigarette smoke. China has yet to get that public health notice.
These look like the Buddha bones from earlier.
Fried persimmon cakes - or as I like to call them, Persimmon-based Oil Sponge
Potstickers. How many times have they used that oil?
Fluffly pastry! Soaked with Oil! =P
oh, come on! this must be a practical joke an American translator is playing on these guys. Engrish to the max.
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