Kaifeng/Luoyang

Part of my program involves taking "excursions" as a group to different cities. The first one we did was Nanjing, and the most recent one was last weekend. We had a choice among 3 excursions, and I chose to go on the Kaifeng/Luoyang one. There was only 11 people on the trip, so it was nice and small and a lot more enjoyable because of that.

The reason we went to Kaifeng and Luoyang is because they are two of the ancient capitals of China. Beijing and Nanjing are the other two we have been to and the others are Xian, Hangzhou and Anjing. Unfortunately I won't have time to go to any of those.

The weekend started off with another overnight train ride on hard sleepers (66 people in one car again). Once again, very little sleeping was done by me. Mainly because of the chorus of snores coming from the 4 men sharing the same compartment. We arrived in Kaifeng early on Friday (we had Friday off of school because it was "sports day" or something like that) and went promptly to check into our hotel. Worst. Hotel. Ever. The floors weren't vacuumed, the bathrooms where dirty, and it was like a refrigerator because they didn't have the heat on an it was about 45 degrees outside. All part of the China experience though! Our first stop in Kaifeng was the Dragon Pavilion which was built by one of the emperors for some reason or another. I apologize for the lack of detail, but it was freezing and raining and I was trying harder to stay warm and dry than I was trying to listen to the tour guide. So all I know is that is really pretty and the emperor used to hold council and other emperor-esque duties there.

After a short rest at the hotel, we headed back out to visit a park that was modeled off of this Song dynasty painting:

It kind of reminded me of Colonial Williamsburg. Unfortunately, the weather had taken a turn for the worse, and it started sleeting on us. So instead of exploring the park more, we popped into a restaurant, warmed up with some tea for an hour or so, ate dinner and then headed back to the hotel to warm up (impossible due to the lack of heating). Thankfully, instead of spending the night cooped up in a hotel room, the teachers that took us on the trip arranged KTV (karaoke) for all of us to go to!

The next morning, a few of us chose to go visit the local Catholic church. This church was built in 1916 and managed to survive the cultural revolution.

The steeple from a distance 

 The free standing bell tower behind the church

The priest, telling us about the founders of the church.

Once we returned from the hotel, it was time to head out for Luoyang. During the 3 hour bus ride to get  Luoyang, I realized that was the first time we actually drove to a city that we where going to be spending an extended period of time in. Every other time we've taken the train. Just another difference between America and China.

Upon arrival in Luoyang, we headed over to the Peony gardens for the annual Peony festival. Apparently Luoyang is the Peony capital of China. Not sure why. But it was pretty!

This band was playing outside the gardens. 

They could stand to learn a little something about tuning. 

Being weird with Hannah, per usual. 

Overview of the garden area.

Luoyang also marked the exacerbation of something that had been happening every where else: people wanting to take pictures with us. They would get our attention by calling “高福帅哥” (tall, rich, handsome) to the guys and “美女” (pretty girl) to the girls (which is funny that they use such respectful terms when we walk around calling our selves 洋鬼子 which means "foreign devil"), and then ask us to take a picture with them. We almost always obliged. It got so bad for me one time that one of the teachers had to act like my agent and usher me away from the area and swat away all the people wanting to take pictures.

The last day of the trip was Sunday which we spent at the Longmen grottoes there in Luoyang. The Longmen grottoes is this area with lots of caves carved into the side of a cliff and inside these caves are stone buddhas carved from the rock. The buddhas where carved there because it was considered a
"holy place" and because if a family could carve a buddha, they believed they would have an easier time of reaching enlightenment. Despite the crushing crowd, it was actually a really cool area.

From across the river (which also happens to

be a tributary of the Yellow river) 

El Grupo

Sunday afternoon we took the high speed train back to Beijing and got back to the dorms at around 9:30pm. All in all, the trip was really fun, despite the rain and chilly weather.

This weekend is Labor Day here in China, so we get next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off of school which means.....more travelling! WOOO! This time we (Hannah, Kate, John and I (pretty much the Qingdao gang minus Eddie because he's going to Hong Kong instead, loser)) are going to Harbin, which is one of the northern most cities in China and is super close to the Russian border. So there is a lot of Russian influence and apparently a lot of Russians living there. Should be fun! I'll tell you all about that when we get back. Good luck to all those back at home taking finals!