Post. 122. Calming park in Changzhou. Plus a Starbucks.

My second and third day in China were spent wandering around the hotel while my husband worked.  We had seen some sculptures and a park nearby the hotel during the cab ride to Tianning Temple, so I figured my first goal was to find those.  (It'll take a long story before you'll hear again, so a preview  success!)

But first I had to cross the street.  Holy Moly.  Each direction had six to eight lanes for cars, another lane for mopeds and bicycles, and then there were pedestrians.  I had read that pedestrians do not have the right of way like they do in the US, so I knew to be careful.  There were lights for pedestrians at this intersections, and there other people I could cross with, so I made it across without incident.  But boy, it really is everybody for themselves.  The mopeds and bicycles especially, seemed to ignore the traffic lights, occasionally driving right out into traffic.  It was wild.  (This intersection actually had a traffic cop around 8 and 5 pm.  He gave harsh words to mopeds and pedestrians who failed to stop where they were supposed to, and I saw him give one car a ticket for turning when he wasn't supposed to.  So the government is trying to enforce rules.)  And that helped my comfort level during crossing.

The next intersection I got to was without lights for pedestrians, and the cross-walk was kind of crooked, and the some of the traffic signals were obscured by trees - so I couldn't see when the left turn was green.  I watched a couple cross the road and they stopped right in the middle to wait a while.  There was even this strange marking in the middle of the cross-walk like it was a spot for stopping.  But I wasn't sure I was up for standing in the middle of the road as cars whizzed right by me, so I turned around and did not make it across.  A photo of the intersection where I turned around is below.  (I obviously should have taken more time to look at the photo I shot before I turned around.  This photo shows absolutely no chaos, but I swear it appeared crazy and disorganized, and unimaginably dangerous.  If you look closely at how the cross-walk goes, you can see that it kind of seems to stop in the middle.  Plus the intersection is wider than it appears here too, I just wasn't brave enough try that first day out.)

But I had made it across the first intersection, and I had actually passed a park I just hadn't been sure it was the right park. 

But it was the right park and it was glorious.  It was so green, it had rose sculptures, and water, and tai chi, and a playground, and a small children's amusement park, and trees and flowers.  I must have walked for two hours on my first excursion to the park.

 

 

 

It was very hot, even at 8 am in the morning, primarily because of the 100% humidity.  So while the park was glorious, I was just as excited about the Starbucks right next to the park.  The building that Starbucks was in was beautiful, and I could order in English - yipee.  I happily ordered myself a venti iced latte.  It wasn't until I ordered another iced drink the next day that I remembered I wasn't supposed to have ice.  Whoops.  Luckily I did not have any trouble.

(The Starbucks is the brown building.  The tallest building way in the back, you can barely make it out, but it says 'Traders' in red at the top, that was our hotel.)

See on,
Julee

 

 

Post 121. Changzhou I'm loving you.

So I'm back from an exciting week in China, with tons of photos and stories.  Overall I loved the trip, although it certainly had its scary and challenging moments.

Day 1.  Tianning Temple.  (Isn't the detail at the top of the temple just gorgeous?)

(We flew into Shanghai Sunday night and had the hotel pick us up and drive us the three hours to Traders Fudu in Changzhou.  The hotel is the taller building on the right that says 'Traders' way up high.)

Since we had traveled nearly 24 hours to arrive, the first day basically involved dinner and sleeping.  But Monday we were up and out the door to Tianning Temple.  This was a beautiful Buddhist pagoda.  There were gardens and sculptures galore.  A myriad of details, too many photos to share everything. 

The detail at the bottom of the temple was incredible too, all that carved white rock, it surrounded the whole temple.

Here was a particularly vibrant character inside one of the building on the grounds of the temple.  What you cannot see is a pad for kneeling that was in front of each Buddha where you could pray and a box where you could put money.  There must have been a hundred of these praying stations throughout the temple area.

The gardens also contained all sorts of praying stations like the area below.  There was incense burning, although it is hard to see in the photo.

We think it was also some sort of monestary where monks lived at one time, however there were no guide books available, the signs were all in Chinese, and no one spoke English to talk to us about what we were seeing. 

Here is one view of Changzhou from near the top.  Changzhou is a city of approximately 4 million people.

We had walked around the grounds for maybe 45 minutes, and then my husband noticed someone inside the pagoda. We had not seen a way in.  So we went and looked harder and sure enough, despite some construction we could go in.  However, after some hand waving and furious pointing by the security guard we figured out we needed to purchase a second ticket to go inside.   Once inside there were Buddhas all over, essentially the rooms, all 15 or 16 floors, were in a ring with quadrants of displays.  (There were a few middle floors that were still under construction that we couldn't see.)  The security guard's helpful gesturing again helped us understand we were proceed in a clockwise fashion.  (Despite 4 million people, one of the amazing parts of the whole trip was the distinctive lack of people anywhere outside.  Inside the pagoda there was no one we could just watch to determine proper behavior.)
 
This was my favorite floor, the room with the crystal Buddhas.  The lights in the ceiling changed color so the room changed from red to blue to green to white back to red.

Here are a few more of the neat details that we saw.

 

 

 

 

More tomorrow.

See on,
Julee

Post 120. Another dinosaur.

I am at the Chicago airport waiting to fly to Shanghai. I am getting really excited. (Although I suspect excitement will wane a bit during the 14.5 hour flight.)

Nevertheless, as my last post for a week I wanted to post something... (I won't have my phone or laptop.)

Here is what I got from the airport. A nice glass art display and a giant dinosaur.

I will miss you all, and i hope to see you again on Sunday June 2nd.

See on.
Julee

Post 119. Meet Pete the Dinosaur.

I have been in Iowa all week auditing, and as I drove through Coon Rapids this morning I passed a glorious assortment of sculptures.  Sculptures are my bliss.

The first one I passed was this enormous set of three cages with geometric shapes in them.  Then I came upon a park where I fell in love with Pete the dinosaur.

I had to come back at the end of the day to photograph everything.  Too bad it was a gray and gloomy day, but the photos still turned out.

Say Hi to Pete.

Here is the neat sculpture that first caught my eye.

Here is a cool praying mantis and a golf club windmill.  Awesomeness.  Total awesomeness.

See on.
Julee

Post 118. Swarm.

You've probably heard of the monster mosquitoes from Minnesota.  Well, apparently they have migrated to South Dakota.  As my husband and I were out driving out on Sunday we came upon this neat, isolated lake.  We pulled up right to the edge and we could see the car was just surrounded by giant mosquitoes.  I debated for a few minutes, but finally decided I would get out and see if I could get a few shots of ducks.

No.

What I heard when I stepped out of the car was terrifying.  Bzzzzz, bzzzzz, bzzzzz, bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.  It was so loud.  I lasted about 3 seconds outside before ducking back into the car.  I truly could not believe how uncomfortable the sound was.  Had I been camping I surely would have gone crazy from not being able to escape.

So I totally had to get a picture.

From the safety of the car.

 
YUCK!

Oddly, several other small lakes had no mosquitoes.  And I'm happy to report that I had no bites!

See on,
Julee

Post 117. The pelicans are back.

I was excited to see that the pelicans are finally back.  These huge, prehistoric birds are some of my favorite wildlife.  Today I was lucky enough to catch them and a crane in the same shots.

See on,
Julee

Post 116. City Dump.

We are lucky enough to have a city that gives us a couple of weekends of free drop off at the city dump.  The caveat is that the load must be covered in order for drop off to be free.  Our first year we diligently tied up some construction waste in a borrowed trailer and drove the dump.  As we went to check out my husband was told he had to pay.  Not only pay, but pay twice the normal drop of price  because the load was not covered with a tarp.   All the ad in the paper said was free drop off, the ad did not state loads had to be covered to quality for free drop off.  (As an engineer, my husband made sure the load was tied very securely, but it was explained that tied up and covered are not the same thing.)

Not awesome.  Thanks city.

But we learned our lesson.  This year's trek to the dump was free.  And since it was kind of our highlight for the day, I'm posting the few shots I got.  (I wasn't totally sure they would approve of me taking pictures, so I kind of took them covertly, hence they're not very good.)

First up the giant garbage pushers.  No, I don't know their technical name, but there were two of them and they were monstrous.

My husband finally discarded a number of old computer bodies, monitors, and keyboards he had been holding onto for years with the thought that one day he would put them all together to make one super computer.  But he realized that even all put together they wouldn't be as big as today's computers, so maybe his computer would not be that super after all.  (Plus 10 keyboards, really?  We had 10 old keyboards.  That is just weird.)  Here is the dumpster and the computers.  And in my husband's defense, he is very pro-recycling and for items that can be recycled or contain hazardous components that shouldn't be in landfills, like computers, he wants to ensure recyclables and hazardous items of his are properly discarded and he did not know until this year that our city indeed had a separate e-waste disposal process. 

Here is a blurry example of the sign that told us where to go.  The few times I've been to the dump, I'm always kind of impressed that it is so neat and tidy.  Each type of waste has it's own tidy pile.

See on,
Julee