DAY 1, 22ND DECEMBER.
Woke up at around 4am. We packed our stuff and departed for LCCT at 5am. Our flight was 9am, and we were required to check in 3 hours earlier, which meant we had to be there by 6am. We did, and we had breakfast after checking in the passports and luggages. By the time we finished everything (by taking our time), it was already 8am. We waited at the gate and met some aunties who were going back to Chengdu from Malaysia too. The places they recommended were the places we were going to visit, so we knew we made the right choices, with the exception of one due to restrictions during winter time.
Checking in @ LCCT (Air Asia).
In the forever crowded cabin of the Air Asia airplane.
My buddy for the journey :)
Is this what heaven looks like? Lawl.
The journey to China was approximately 4 hours. Before landing, everybody was starting to put on their winter wear, so we did the same. We proceeded to pass through the annoying customs and stuff and look for our booked driver. I hate communicating in China, knowing that mandarin isn't exactly my main dialect =.= However, the driver used simple chinese to communicate and I was able to understand him (with difficulty, Sichuan dialect has different tone from the mandarin here). The minute we went out through the airport doors, the cold breeze immediately greeted our faces. *Shiver* We took a ride in his MPV and proceeded to our first stop of the day - The Panda Research Center.
Customs.
See all the taxis.
Jamming our bags into the MPV.
Inside the van.
The weather is very foggy. The driver says 60% of the time the weather is like that x.x
Not only was the weather foggy, but it was hella dusty too. As we all know, China has the largest population of all the countries in the world. Since there are many people here, the number of vehicles would also increase, hence the heavier fog/dust whatever you call it. And they are only allowed one children per family, so you could imagine how they envy us when they saw my family (3 kids mah, lol). Soon we arrived at the research center. We paid the entrance fee and continued inside.
Near the entrance
Map.
Peacocks wandering about freely within the center.
A golden panda monument.
Callum, Valen, me, my mom.
Nice bamboo :D
Lol. Best sign ever for a panda.
My bro and I.
Pandas...
...love to eat. "MMM BAMBOO!"
The red panda.
It looks like a fox actually. Same colour, same big bushy tail. But its a panda x.x
Info on red panda.
Bamboo man O_O
Panda coffee house :D
Entrance sign.
2 brothers.
My cappuccino.
Yougest bro with security guard outside the center.
Next, we went to check in in our hotel "Holday Inn Express". We were lucky, cause the manager could speak fluent English with an American slang. He also knows cantonese (he worked in Macau before) and of course the sichuan dialect they use here. He helped us to do some translation when buying some local phone cards too xD. This hotel is not bad, I'd give it a rating of 7/10. At least it keeps you warm :)
Blehhh.
Beds.
Nice TV they have here.
Bathroom.
Presenting the messy traffic of China.
That reminds me, the traffic! From my observation throughout my holiday in China, I have concluded that China drivers are even worse than Malaysian drivers. There are a few simple rules to follow actually.
1. Be reckless and speedy.
2. If the car in front is slower than you, honk him.
3. If he still doesn't move, honk him repeatedly.
4. If he moves, speed off like a rocket and honk the next car.
5. If he still ignores, just overtake him while honking.
6. Your non-recklessness can lead to your inevitable demise (stuck in traffic).
7. These rules apply to all vehicles including buses and cabs.
Epic eh? And 1 more thing about China people. They love to spit. Wherever you go, you will see people doing this. That's why I hate walking around in China. Spitting is a very disgusting habit. You can see fresh spits on the floor every 3 minutes. Now that is super duper gross. I wish I had a spell that returns the spit back to their mouths.
Alright enough of that. It appears that the food outlets in China close quite early, as early as 8.30pm. Could be the weather, cause 6pm in China looks like 7.30pm already. And 8.30am looks like 7am lol. We walked around and then went to a simple shop for a simple dinner before returning to our hotel.
One of the streets.
See the colourful high rise buildings.
Here's where all the cheap stuff are. I got a winter coat for RM 15 :D
See the way they place their chopsticks. Lol.
DAY 2, 23RD DECEMBER.
The plan for our holiday was:
Day 1: Panda Center
Day 2: Visit Le Shan and reach the foot of Emei Shan by evening
Day 3: Go to the peak of Emei Shan and return to Chengdu city by night (same hotel)
Day 4: Shopping spree + Walking around
Day 5: Return to M'sia.
Basically, we are on schedule. We went down to the hotel restaurant for our breakfast before departing @ 8am for Le Shan (this com cant type chinese characters, psps =x). Our main purpose for visiting Le Shan was to see the big buddha statue (Le Shan Da Fo). The journey from our hotel in Chengdu city to Le Shan was about 2 hours. I slept for half the journey :)
Who knew that there were student rates here as well. And my dad told me not to bring my cards here (cards that I stuff in my wallet, my student card was one of'em). End up we had to negotiate with the manager. I mean, why the hell do you need proof. Does my youngest brother need proof that he is a student? Sheeesh! But anyway, we succeeded in getting student prices for my brothers and I (I graduated eh, heheh). We paid a tour guide to take us around the mountain. Upon entry, we could see a scene of lush greens and a calm river. On the sides of the mountain we could see a big buddha shape carved into it. We viewed many different statues and buddhas, and climbed a very long flight of stairs (not as long as Batu Caves). And finally, we reached the place where the giant buddha rested, near the end of the tour.
Entrance to Le Shan.
The first view when we entered.
Nice scenery.
Hand carved buddha statues.
The head was reconstructed. The body remained its old raggedy form.
Entrance to Shi Yi Luo Han Exhibition.
A carving of people carrying a statue.
Lotus altar?
The long flight of stairs I mentioned.
Fatty.
Weird pot this is o.o
This thing is at the top of the stairs.
ZOMG ITS ZAKUM! Just kidding, its the Qian Shou Guan Yin with 228 hands.
Not much difference is there? LOL!
The giant buddha is enormous. According to the tour guide, its entire height is 71 meters. The shoulders are 28 meters long from one end to the other, and the ears are 7 meters long.
This is the head of giant buddha statue.
Our sizes may look the same, but don't let appearances fool you :P
I have no idea what's that white thing.
Resting after a long walk.
After viewing the giant buddha,
NO NOT THAT! LOL!
...we proceeded to our next destination - Emei Shan. Our plan was to stay a night at the foot of the mountain, and go up to the peak the very next day. Emei Shan is quite near to Le Shan, so it didn't take long for us to reach (after we had our lunch of course). Once there, we checked into a hotel that the driver recommended us. After all, what we wanted was a clean and comfortable hotel, doesn't need to be all fancy. By this time, the temperature was about 7 degrees celcius. The previous spots we visited are around 8-10 degrees. "This is going to be one heck of a chilly night" I thought. Unlike the Holiday Inn Express, this hotel doesn't have a heater. Oh well. At the hotel, we signed up for a package tour of the peak of Emei Shan, bringing us to temples and whatnot. The journey from the base to one of the higher points is 2 hours by bus. From there, we still need to walk a distance and take a cable car up, then walk again before reaching the peak. Nevertheless, we agreed cause that is what we came here for.
We walked around near the hotel, and I took some pics.
My dad likes the traditional design of this shop.
Same with this.
Selling bikinis in the middle of winter? Cool!
Waterfall.
A golden thingy o.o
*Eye sparkles*
A couple taking wedding photos lol.
Wheee :D SAY CHEESE!
Panda statues :O
LOL =.=
White elephant. Looks indian-like.
That was the last picture of the day. We had dinner and then slept.
DAY 3, 24TH DECEMBER 2009
Woke up at 5am to get ready for the tour. By 6.10am we already finished our breakfast and proceeded to the designated bus. We stopped at the entrance to buy entry tickets before continuing our ascent up the mountain. As usual, I slept but for more than half the journey this time. 2 hours eh, what to do?
And when I opened my eyes, I saw snow for the first time in my life.
"Wah! I'm in Bloody Ice!" O_O
This is Bloody Ice lol.
Anyway, it was very damn freezing up there. If there's ice and snow, the temperature is sure to be below zero degrees. Even with a long john, long sleeve shirt, sweater, and 2 winter coats (that makes it 5 layers), I could still feel the chill. I've even wore 2 jeans and 2 socks =.="
It seems that our shoes weren't enough to tackle the slippery stairs and slopes. There they sold shoe straps made of uhm, I dunno LOL. Some just tied spikes to their shoes. These helped us to grip the slipper surface of the ground to prevent us from falling over. Still, there are people who manage to slip, fall, trip, you name it. We continued our journey by foot to the cable car and took it up higher, where we reached the peak. There stood a giant golden buddha statue on 4 elephants. There were also a few temples, including 2 very large ones. My family wanted to go skiing, so we broke off from the tour group. If we followed the tour group, we would proceed to other temples after this. Youngsters (like my brothers and I) are of course completely uninterested in temples, so naturally we were happy about skiing. Besides, that goddamn tour guide pisses me off. She talks so loudly, like we're close to being deaf or something. Imagine SHOUTING through a SPEAKER in front of 10 people that's gathered around you zzz. That's not all, she keeps rushing us around, leaving us no time to take pictures or rest awhile. We were gasping for air because of her. Breaking off from the tour guide was the wise decision.
Snow! Wheee!
The slippery stairs.
*Waaaahhhhhh*
See the icicles? :D
Wet? Don't you mean slippery? == Or at least put road with snow.
The big golden statue.
The 2 big temples.
My brother and I.
Wonder how long it takes you to reach the ground if you jump from here.
See the way they walk to prevent falling.
Snow monkey.
Broken english.
Broken english.
My bro the snowman f3
White christmas :D
Later we went to the skiing field. I didn't take any pictures since I was skiing myself, but my dad took videos on his camcorder. I haven't got it from him though. I am glad to say I didn't fall on my first few tries :D But I fell TWICE on my last run because there was a problem with the locking mechanism on the ski boots zzz.
The skiing field is further down.
Epic phail in english. See the last few lines.
We left Emei shan at about 3.45pm. The journey down is another 2 hours, but it was cut short to 1 hour 30 mins+, because that stupid driver thinks he is driving a Ferrari. He was speeding down the slopes so fast WTF. All the sharp curves and the speed at which he was going made me giddy and I threw up =.=" Curse that driver!
From Emei Shan back to Chengdu was another 2 hours, and by the time we reached Holiday Inn Express it was already 7.30pm+. Feeling exhausted and not wanting to walk anymore, we went to the nearest shop to have our dinner. The dinner was, chicken/duck rice with char siew :D
And now I present to you....
THE ULTIMATE DISPOSABLE DINNER SET
Disposable cup, disposable soup bowl, disposable chopsticks, disposable tupperware
4TH DAY, 25TH DECEMBER.
Merry Christmas hohoho! It was a free day for us, and we decided to walk around the city ourselves. We got to the nearest bus stop and took a bus to Ren Min Gong Yuan. The bus system here is more effective than in Malaysia. Every 5 minutes there will be a bus, whereas here you need to wait 1 hour+ =.=" And it doesn't stop there. The buses in China have good air conditioning and television. Our Malaysia bus? Nah, I don't wanna say anymore. The traffic here is just like what you can find in KL, always jam, except that they have a lot more bicycles and motorcycles.
See what I mean?
We took Bus no.64 to Ren Min Gong Yuan. When we entered, my ears picked up harmonious music. Curious, we went deeper in the park, and there we saw a bunch of old folks singing together. Not just 10, but around 50 or more of them. There were a few of them who were playing chinese traditional instruments, such as the er hu and pi pa. Also with them was a conductor, who had a very powerful expression and conducted professionally. I recorded a video on the singing, but there seems to be a problem with my converter. I'll upload it when I solve the problem :)
Going deeper into the park.
Looks more than 50 right?
And it doesn't end here. After the singing, they all regrouped for line dancing. My mom was so excited that she joined in as well. This lifestyle is actually not bad. At least the old folks have something to do that will help them pass time. It seems that they do this every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 2 hours per day. Looks like we came at the right time :D
Line dancing.
We stopped by a tea house to try out some tea, and went to eat our lunch before proceeding to our next stop - Jing Li street.
4 types of tea.
Pots in a pot.
All this food for RM 15 :D
Later we took bus no.57 to Jing Li street for some shopping. Here I bought some souvenirs for my aunties and uncles back at Malaysia :D
Entrance.
Looks like drawing, but he's actually making candy.
This is the candy :D
They started decorating for new year.
Nice trees.
Wishing well.
Spring? Lol.
Look at the amount of people.
Next we headed to one of the main shopping squares in Chengdu. We walked and shopped all the way until 8pm+. Only then did we return to our hotel. My legs were sore from all the walking. Is this what its like when you have a girlfriend? LOL. I was so tired that night I slept quite early.
The shops here are like what you can find in Sungai Wang, but more crowded and more shops due to the dense population.
See, so many people =.=
There are 10 floors in this building.
Yep, all clothes and winter wear. Nothing else.
A special wedding car lol.
Shopping square
Shopping square
She's promoting for a fashion retailer.
:)
Never seen dummies made out of this before.
5TH DAY, 26TH DECEMBER.
Woke up at 8.30am, had breakfast at the hotel. Slacked around in the hotel room until 11.30am. Called a taxi, and off we went to the airport. Flight scheduled at 2.55pm. Went through customs blah blah blah. Had lunch, and boarded the plane. Reached LCCT @ 7.30pm, reached home @ 9pm+ (had errands to run).
At the airport before departing for KL.
