Day 5 - Big Wild Goose and Off to the Boat!

Xian is a beautiful city.  I would have loved to spend weeks there exploring, because you just never know what sort of strange and wonderful things you can find.  Like iconic photos made into statues...

 Which left me wondering why on earth there would be a statue celebrating Victory in Europe Day in the middle of China.  Our first stop of the day was a Jade "factory".  Yet another shopping stop where we would get a short briefing on the wonders of jade, and then be given an inexplicably long time to shop!  The first part of the tour was pretty cool.  This guy was carving an intricate piece.

 I got a picture because it occurred to me that if I could score a nice piece of jade to bring home, perhaps I could make it into something cool.  Like knife scales or jewelery.  Now I can duplicate this work station in my shop and play with jade and other gem type material!  I wonder how long it will take to learn to carve something like this...

 The selection of raw jade was pretty slim, but I did find this nice piece that seemed to be calling out to me.  I could see the chance for a couple of sets of scales, as well as a bunch of earrings, necklaces and such.  It was a bit out of my little business' price range, and while I was hemming and hawing and Jimmy and I were talking the seller down a few hundred Yuan, Dad and Jason decided to pitch in and become my first investors in Bluefeather Gardens and Workshop.

 So, with a BIG chunk of jade in hand, we left the jade store and headed for the Big Wild Goose Pagoda.

 If you look carefully, you can see that it is leaning a bit to the left.  Our guide says that this happened due to the water tables under the city being depleted, and weakening the structures all over the city.  The legend of the pagoda says that it was built when two monks were standing on the site and one said to the other that he was very hungry.  The second said not to worry, that the universe would provide.  At that, a big, wild goose fell dead at their feet.  In thanks they built the pagoda!

 See above?  The old Dragon and Phoenix motif.  Remember that for later...
Since the pagoda is a working temple, there were a great many Buddhas hanging around.  Some, like the one below, were adorned with a swastika on the chest... look closely...

 Long before the Nazis ruined the symbol for all time, it was a Buddhist symbol meaning eternity.  Of course, after WWII Buddhas were built absent the swastika, or with different symbols, like this one... 

 The pagoda really was a beautiful structure.

 And of course, the grounds came complete with bell and drum towers, here shown framing China's National bird... The Crane...

 Too soon we were headed for the airport.  Our destination was Chongqing, one of the largest cities on the planet... but we'll get to that soon enough.  On the drive out of town, I made a remarkable discovery.  I took pictures secretly and fortunately was not discovered by the Chinese Government.  After all, pictures like these could change the world as you know it.  It seems we drove right past the secret installation involved with building the giant autonomous robots that can change into vehicles on the fly...

 I'm pretty sure this is more than meets the eye.

As we were driving along the highway, at highway speeds mind you, we kept passing these workers cleaning the roads.  I got a shot of this one...

 But could only stare in awe at the people walking along the dotted lines in the middle of the roads, sweeping with huge brooms!

The flight to Chongqing was nice, again highlighted by strange foods.  The road from the airport to the boat was only supposed to take an hour to drive, but due to traffic it took about two.  Chongqing is massive.  On a scale that boggles the mind.For two solid hours we drove through skyscraper landscapes...

 The sheer number of tall buildings was staggering.  It made New York look little, and Chicago seem plain old rural!  The population of the city is almost 33 million people.  For a little perspective, the population of Australia is about 22 1/2 million people.  On a list of the 224 nations on the planet, if Chongqing were it's own country, it would rank 37th, just below Canada, which has 34 million.  This entire population lives in an area smaller than Iceland.  The place is packed with people. 
 When we reached the docks, we were told to watch our bags, as the locals would grab them and take them to the boat to get a tip. Sure enough, as we disembarked the bus, there were several dozen locals flocked around trying to grab bags. We managed to get most all of them (the sisters let the locals help) and made our way down onto our ship. It was too dark for pictures, but once we got into our berth, I snapped a quick shot.



Small, but the view was awesome!  We ate in the main dining room when we arrived, but were told that as a tour group, we were going to be eating on the top deck from then on.  Since the ship was not going to shove off until about one in the morning, the three of us explored a bit, and settled into our cots.  I slept quite happily through the night, barely feeling the roll of the ship as we left port.

More Later