Jiuzhaigou

Hey all,

finally have a moment to update. Got up at 5 in the morning to get on a plane from Beijing to Chengdu, and man was the airport crowded! I found this on the flight to Shanghai as well, but there's really no sense of a lineup here. People pretty much just crowd in and get in as fast as they possibly can. :P Security wasn't too bad, basically the same as in Canada. The flight was 2 hours, but we took off late and arrived late in Chengdu. We then caught a flight to Jiuzhaigou National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site and many other superlatives. Basically, it's the most beautiful place I've been to so far. We'll post some pics as soon as we get access to a faster computer. :P

We've been pretty much going up and down the mountain valley looking at the many jewel-colored lakes in the area. The colors ranged from pale blue to aquamarine to emerald green to indigo. At one point, the sun reflecting through the ripples of one lake created a rainbow ripple effect underwater... There are many buses that travel up and down that you can hop on and off depending on what you want to look at, and well-maintained boardwalks that are pretty easy to walk on. Lots of tourists even in the winter, but the park is pretty spectacular all year round.

The first day in the park the weather was pretty mild, sunny in the morning but starting to snow in the evening. The scenery was relatively green and kind of end-of-fall-ish. It snowed last night, and this morning the scenery had drastically changed into a winter wonderland (*jazz fingers*). Lots of snow, and all the trees had a crown of white. The waterfalls and the lakes hadn't frozen yet, but were rimmed with snow all around. There were even some icicles dripping down the greenery by the waterfall edges!

Weather is certainly warmer than winter in Canada, but it's still pretty cold (inside as well, no central heating). Even in Beijing we had to wear long underwear to bed. Pretty overcast, but the mornings are relatively sunny. Had a few chuckles at the Asian tourists seeing and playing in the snow for the first time, as well as the tourist-trap snowmen photo ops...

We've been trying out different kinds of food (all well cooked of course); the first day here, we were taken to a local Tibetan restaurant which served a variety of traditional dishes, including roast mountain lamb meat and yak butter tea. They had a game where the guests chanted "lhaso, lhaso, lha-lha-so!", and one had to sing a song, drink the wine three times, do a little dance, or stay and marry one of the villagers... guess which one I chose :P... We then were invited to try some traditional dances by the bonfire, the last one in which we joined hands and did a dance kind of like the greek wedding dance... pretty fun... Other nights we tried some Sichuan food, which is overall spicy. Yak meat is kind of like lamb, but more gamey.

We're heading back to Chengdu in a couple days, and will try to hit up some local sights (pandas!) before hopping on a train to Chongqing, where we'll catch a cruise down the Yangtze river to Wuhan. From there, we'll probably be taking a train to Wudangshan, birthplace of Wudang kungfu. Hiyah!

cheers, Ange