Monkey Island and Buddhas

From Linda

Saturday morning our team went to see the giant Buddha carved in the rocks in the city of Lashan (a couple of hours from Chengdu). It's peak season for visiting the site, so we waited in long, winding lines in order to descend from the back of buddha's curly head down to his toes at the bottom of the stair-studded hill. Pretty interesting, but I do prefer Mount Rushmore! At the bottom, we came to a large river, where several Chinese tour boats floated near shore.

Today we wound our way up (by bus, foot, and tram) to the top of Mount Emai—more than 10,000 feet high! At the top was a Buddhist temple topped by a large golden statue. The air was permeated with the ever-present smell of burning incense. But the view from the top, above the clouds, was magnificent! Some of our more daring young men climbed onto some rocks for great photo ops.

Then it was on to Monkey Island and another long stair climb to the top of a Buddhist monastery. The monkeys, which climbed up onto the bridges and walkways to be fed, were cute but wild, kept at bay by workers holding sticks.

We have one more week of teaching before we visit Beijing and return to the States.

Today's Slideshow: Pictures from the weekend by Justin. Team China members pictured in the slideshow: Sherry, Eric, Nikki, Beth, Kristen, Justina, Nathan M, Justin, Sharon, Katy, Michael, Jacob, Jonathan, Taryn, and Rachel. Select the comment button when the slideshow begins to see captions.