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Kid on bus
This 10 year-old was quite taken with the white girl on board. After his initial look of confusion we bonded... After spending last weekend’s 3 day holiday weekend cooped up on my room, I decided that the following weekend, I best get out of town if not only for a day. I mentioned my destination to my students, Leshan, and 2 girls told me they had never been, so they would accompany me. At first I was hesitant to accept their company, but admitted to myself that it would be helpful to have their verbal skills at my disposal. So we set up the plan to meet in front of the school at 7am sharp, Saturday morning.
Leshan is a small-ish town about 3 hours from here, it is known for having the world’s largest Buddha and that is all. A nice day trip I thought to myself. Saturday morning I meet my 2 students and they tell me 2 more are coming, so we wait and sure enough they come running from the dormitories. We head off to the bus station, only to learn that our bus is over an hour’s wait, we all groan realizing we could have slept another hour, but my students are quick to realize this is a great time to practice English.
Entrance to the Buddha
left to right: Susan, Sophie, Me, Elaine, Amy, part of my sophomore group The bus ride is quite uneventful, as we begin to pull into Leshan proper; hills begin to form and the lushness of the forest increases. It is nice to see what appears to be healthy forests and green fields, a far cry from what I see around Xindu. It is overcast but still warm, a nice day to walk around and soak in the sites. We find out about the return bus before we leave the station, none of us want to be stuck for the night in Leshan. Like most visitors to Leshan, our only destination is the Giant Buddha, the largest in the world. The girls negotiate a pedi-cab, after what appears to me a lot of unfriendly yelling and pointing (my students assured me it was nothing but friendly negotiations) we hop aboard and are whisked off to a bus stop to wait for the proper bus.
Once onboard the bus I’m a sitting duck for all the world to stare at. I try to ignore it, sometimes glancing up to meet the culprit’s gaze, but it does little good to catch someone in their stare—as it would in the States, they just
Big Buddha
Here he is... keep staring. I am eventually given a seat behind a young boy, about 10 or 11. As soon as he realizes what is behind him, he flips his body around and makes a really confused face at me. So in retaliation I make a really confused face at him, he asked my students a few questions and practiced what little English he knew on me. It was a fun way to pass 10 minutes on a bus. Finally arriving at the park entrance, we pay the steep entrance fee (70 Yuan for me, 45 for my students) and then set off. It takes a mere 10 minutes to hike up to the top of the mountain, we stop along the way and take pictures of the carvings and my students read the Chinese writings to me. Once at the top we walk to the edge of the cliff where you stand eye to eye with the Buddha. They say he is 71 meters, quite impressive. We fight for arm room at the edge so that we can take our picture with our hand positioned in such a way that it looks as if we’re touching the Buddha. It is believed
Little girl and Buddha
This girl was less than impressed with the Giant Buddha. to be good luck to tough his nose, ears, and eyebrows. There is a huge line to walk down the cliff stairs to stand at his feet, so we choose to instead walk around the park and take in the sites. There are many tea houses, gardens, and fountains through out the park. There is also a large statue of the Buddha laying down, but we never arrived there—plus it would have cost another 70 Yuan to marvel at, which I had already decided was not going to happen. Altogether we walked around for about 3 hours, then took the bus back to the main bus station. Found a small restaurant that served tofu and took a seat. The guys working were very intrigued with my presence and repeatedly asked my students to translate questions and flirtations. I finally shut them up when they asked me how old I was—this is considered to be very rude here, however they think they can get away with it because I’m American. They said that ‘I couldn’t be any older than 20,’ so I told my students to tell them I was 45. They didn’t believe me, but it got them to stop
Other side
Big Buddha's left side... asking me questions and let me eat!
The ride back home was long and tiresome. Worn out from all the walking, we fell asleep, but the ride was so bumpy and the movie on the bus was so loud and annoying it was difficult to stay asleep. Once we got to Chengdu, we had to take 2 other buses to try and get to the correct place to catch a third bus to get back to campus, unfortunately it was too late, and we had to pay some private vehicle to take us home. I was relieved thinking this would be a speedy way to get home, sadly no. They stopped at every bus stop along the way yelling out the window, “Xindu, Xindu, Xindu!!” hoping to pick up more fares. Finally, after an exorbitant amount of time, we pull up to the University. We jump out, say our goodbyes and part ways.
The trip was good, not sure what I expected from the world’s tallest Buddha? But it was fun to spend the day with some of my students. Try to get some more day trips in before leave here. Little more than a month
Down to the feet
You can see the long line of people, it would have taken around 2 hours to make our way down to the feet. I wasn't having it. of classes left…
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