Tianshui and Maiji Mountain

Tianshui is the second largest city in Gansu Province, but you'd never know it - I spent almost a week there and I thought it was only about 400,000 people! I thought it was a small city until I looked it up on Wikipedia after my trip! It has a real small-town feel to it; people are happy and seem to know each other, life is super-relaxed, and the natural beauty surrounding the city makes you forget that you're in a big city. Crazy!


Overall, I think Tianshui is my favorite city (or possibly Huan Xian, but we'll get there later). I had a wonderful time meeting lots of great people and eating some good food - especially the mutton. It was a really enjoyable experience. 

Benjamin Xi, a Chinese friend of mine who studied a year at ETBU, has an uncle who lives there and own the 黄河原 water company, a prominent bottled water/office water cooler supply company. Here's a picture of them:

He knows pretty much everyone in the city, but he's way down to earth. He was so nice and so gracious. One day he took us to Maiji Mountain, a very famous mountain in China.





When we got there, he called the Tianshui tourism bureau or whatever it is, and the head of the bureau let us in for free because he's a friend. Holy crap! The entrance fee was like 80元 or something, and we had 8 of us! Well done, sir!


We climbed the mountain and took a lot of pictures and really enjoyed the scenery. After that, we went to a really cool restaurant over a little pond and had some great food and great conversation. 

He wants me to come back and visit him when I return to China and come into his business and help maybe branch out to other places! We'll see what happens :)


Tianshui was a great place and Maiji Shan was truly majestic, but the treasure of Tianshui lies in its people. They're so loving, giving, open and hospitable, so it was tough to leave there, but I have fond memories of the times I had.

The mountain is immediately visible from a distance due to what I call its "straight-down-ness".

Not natural.

Wow, there's a lot of empty space here with this picture haha...


Anyway, I had only heard of the place and hadn't seen any pictures or anything, so I didn't know what to expect...needless to say, I was struck by the scale of it -- it's a freaking mountain full of Buddhist carvings!! A MOUNTAIN!!!

Dude.

If you click on the picture, you can see how tiny the people are in comparison to the stature. It's insane.

All of those little windows are grottoes with statues/paintings inside.

There's 194 of them.

That doesn't sound like a lot, but trust me, 194 grottoes handcarved into the side of a freaking mountain is a big deal. 

Normally, I hate having pictures taken of me, but this time I had to do it --- the scenery was just to beautiful and the place was just too unique to do without it.

Some of the Buddhas like this one date back almost 1,000 years. Dude, look at that. Looks pretty good for 1,000 years unrestored! Carving grottoes was a good idea -- keeps the paint out of the sunlight!

Xi'an Pictures!! and stuff....

Holy crap, more pictures!!! Like the subject line says - they're from Xi'an. Great trip, great company, great food. Any of these pictures you can click on and it'll make it bigger :)

This is what I called in one of my videos "the poetry rock place" in the Tang Dynasty Paradise - tons of classical Chinese poems carved onto these stones

This is the Dayanta - what Chinese people consider the symbol of Xi'an.

This is an overview of part of the Tang Dynasty Paradise. It's a reconstruction of the Tang Dynasty's fabled imperial gardens, but made into a sort of theme park. It was pretty cool.

Everyone knows what these are :) 

Many of the warriors are broken and slowly being reunited with the original earth that they were made from.

A chariot dug up from the site - so cool!!! It's pretty big - though not quite life size.

One of the famous night markets in Xi'an - this one is just behind the Drum (Bell) Tower that you saw in my videos. The vendors sell a lot of Muslim food and Xi'an specialties.

Dunno....just thought this was a neat doorway

A building similar to the Drum/Bell tower, but not it.

This is the Drum/Bell tower. The night market is not too far from behind where I'm standing.

One of the amazing bronze works of the Shang Dynasty (1600-1406 BC). The Shang Dynasty bronze work was unsurpassed in its time and remained the standard for bronze work until modern times. The details worked into this are just incredible.

These, as you can see are sea shells. They were used as the first form of currency in China (I think so, anyway) and the character 贝，which means 'shell', still can mean money in some circumstances, even now.

This is a mold for the next form of money that was made, which were circular coins with square holes in the middle so people could keep them on strings. Pretty cool!

This is an example of a Tang Dynasty 三采马 (I think that's the right 采). It means "3 color horse" and is a classic image of Tang Dynasty China. I have a souvenir one that my friend bought me 

The sign said it was a mirror - but....I don't see any reflecty-mirror-ness...just really awesome artwork.

This is actually really important in Chinese history. It is the cover of one of the old Chinese Civil Service Examination tests. These tests were given to people who wanted to become civil servants and took 2-3 days to complete. The applicants wrote '8 legged essays' based upon knowledge of Confucian principles. It was used for hundreds of years for people who wanted to serve the government.

I'm going to a city called Jinchang, which is in Gansu, for the Wuyi Holiday - we have a couple of days off for that holiday and it just follows the "sports meeting", which is where students and faculty get together for three days of no class and compete in sports events and showcases of martial arts and parades and some other jolly good stuff, so all in all, we get 5 days off of school! China is great like that. We've already had one holiday and are going to have 2 more, and then the "dragon boat festival" is coming up - another holiday!

Much love, talk to you guys later!

Some Pictures

Sorry that I haven't put up any pictures, it's been really hard with my internet. I've managed to get a few up on this post, but not a lot. 

The past couple of days have sucked - I've been really sick. I'm feeling better now, but definitely still sick. I'm at about 80% now, maybe 85%. The Qing Ming holiday in Xi'an was great, but it was really nice to be back in Lanzhou - in a familiar place. Some of the trees are getting green, which is actually pretty comforting. In Xi'an, there were a ton of green plants and bright colors, which cheered me up considerably when all I had seen in Lanzhou was brown and grey. I'll be back soon with more pictures, deal?

This is on my first visit to the Western Campus of LUT - on the left is Freddy and on the right laughing is Ethan. They're good friends of mine.

This is another venture to the West Campus - from left to right is Freddy, Jim Green, Janson (peace), William, and Danny. I met a lot of people that day!

The lake on the West Campus - it's pretty cool!

Me at the Gansu Provincial Museum - lots of cool Buddhist sculptures and art. In Gansu and Shaanxi, the historic Buddhist influence is really obvious.

Left/Right - Huan, Jing, Juan - they took me to the Gansu Museum, I really appreciate it and had a great time! Behind us are Buddhist prayer wheels, which are spun while reciting the chants on the bottom.

The Bell Tower in Xi'an - it's pretty much the picture you always see whenever you Google Xi'an.

This is the fountain in front of the Da Yan Ta in Xi'an. I've heard it's the biggest fountain in Asia - and I'm not surprised. It's at least 300 yards long and 100 yards across - although it's probably bigger. There is a really cool fountain show every day at noon that we got to see