Ready for a day in the park
Qian Ling Park
(I will give you one guess why Aubree is crying)
The gondola ride
Picture from inside our gondola
Don't feed the monkey
Just monkeying around
Entering the Buddhist temple
The world's cutest little sister is wiped out
Another great view from our room at the Sheraton
Okay I finally have some free time to catch up on the blog, so I am going to take us back in time to Wednesday, March 31st. Aubree once again slept all through the night which was truly a blessing. We headed down to our breakfast buffet where the staff was getting to know us by name. Our plan for the day was to visit Qian Ling Park which our guide Michael said was one of the best in the entire province. Lila was starting to have her doubts during breakfast that she was going to be able to endure carrying Aubree all day at the park. After some debate she decided we should probably go as this was suppose to be the best weather day for the remainder of our stay in Guiyang. Michael met us in the lobby and we jumped in a taxi and headed to the outer edge of the city. Guiyang is amazing because the entire city is completely surrounded by mountains, something we are not use to seeing in the U.S. It was about a 20 or 30 minute cab ride and let's just say I would never attempt to drive in China as their appear to be no real rules of the road. We were really surprised not to witness any accidents.
We arrived at the park and saw that it was going to be truly something special as it was really a valley that headed back into the foothills. The flowers were beautiful and there were people everywhere. Immediately, Lila and Aubree were swarmed by people almost like celebrities. The crowd was mostly made up of older women and a few older men. They all wanted to look at Aubree and were making all types of comments. We asked Michael to interpret and he told us they were saying things like, "What a beautiful baby" and "Baby has beautiful skin" and "Baby is very fat" and "Baby does not look like the mama". Michael said he wanted to take us to the top of the park but we need to ride the gondola as the walk would be too long and too steep even if Lila wasn't carrying a 22 pound bundle of joy. Before we jumped on the very questionable gondola, Michael warned us at the top we would see many monkeys. He said these were wild monkeys and not in cages. He warned us not to try and feed the monkeys like others because they would get aggressive and could attack us, possibly biting or scratching us. We jumped on the gondola and headed to the top and began to make our way to the top of the park. When we arrived we were greeted by many monkeys, both large and small. They were everywhere around us, in the trees, on the ground, on the railings and on the buildings. A man was selling bags of peanuts to feed them but we took the advice of our guide and just watched others. Some of the feeding was pretty peaceful as the people would hand a peanut to the monkeys, but we also saw them get aggressive jumping up and snagging the entire bag out of someones hand as well as stealing anything else they could get from the people. They also would come up and grab people by the pant leg and yank to get their attention. This concerned me as I was wearing shorts....Yikes! One lady had a candy sucker in her hand she was about to unwrap and eat when a monkey jumped up and grabbed it from her. We watched as he sat and peeled the wrapper off just like a person would do but instead of sucking on it he just started biting into it.
We then started to descend down a trail through the trees in route to one of the most famous Buddhist temples in the area. We were a little nervous to walk into the forest because the trees were full of monkeys and they followed you hoping you might decide to feed them. We eventually made it to the temple and Michael began to educate us on Buddhism. He explained that this temple was over 800 years old and he began to explain what Buddhism is all about. We saw a burial ground for the monks who had come and gone. Before we entered the temple he explained to me I could not take any pictures or use my camcorder in most areas inside the temple and I certainly could not take pictures of the Buddhas. I did get to take a little video footage inside but I was careful to ask Michael for permission before I did so. There were several structures inside the walls of the temple and most were the homes to one Buddha or another. There was a large cauldron full of ashes and burning incense. There was another large water tank that contained a few decorative vases of varying size inside and the bottom of the tank was covered in coins. Michael explained this was like a wishing well but you had to drop the coins in so they landed in one of the vases in order for your wish to come true. He gave Lila and I a bunch of coins and we tried our luck. Lila and I were quite good at it much to the amazement of some of the locals around us at the tank. When it was time to head back down we found out we needed to climb back up to where the gondola and dropped us off. I was worn out climbing the path back up and poor Lila was carrying Aubree as she still would not come to me without screaming hysterically. We did make it back to the top and enjoyed the relaxing ride back down the gondola. The view was spectacular and I was able to see that further up into the park their was an amusement park with a Ferris wheel and everything. We had enough though so we decided to head back to the hotel. On the way out their were groups of school kids (probably middle school aged) all decked out in their school uniforms. I got the camcorder out and started to take video of them. They all got really excited and started to smile, wave and were saying "Hallo", "Hallo", "Hallo"...it was very cute.
Once back to the hotel Aubree was ready for a nap so we put some comfy clothes on her and she cashed out on the bed. It had been another long day for all of us so we relaxed before grabbing a late dinner and we all turned in early.
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