Wuxi! (Woo-she)

After the Purple Mountains, the next vacation we went on was to Wuxi, a little town about 2 hrs from Nanjing. When we arrived, we realized that none of us in the group had actually taken the initiative to plan this trip out, so we had to work out every situation on our own along the way. We first had to find the bus station, then luckily the marrieds that had gone to Wuxi previously had mentioned that they rode bus 88 so we actually knew what bus to get on… unfortunately but they time we got there the buses had stopped running. So then we ran to the street corned to flag down taxies but many taxi drivers only cater to natives. Anyway, long story short we had to take 3 different taxies to fit everyone and each taxi dropped us off at a wrong stop separate from each other and so we had to wander the streets at night until we happened upon our hotel. When we had all arrived safe and sound we entered our rooms to discover that the beds weren’t mobile so we couldn’t push them together to fit 4 people. Yet again, Alyssa and I had to get comfy with each other.

In the morning we headed to the main Scenic Park with the Big Buddha and temples. Come to find out this whole park was dedicated to the worship of Buddha. The first structure we came upon was this large statue but we found out that at a certain time it turned into a show. The fountains below it started spraying and the top opened up to reveal a baby Buddha. The performance was called Baby Buddha Bathed by Nine Dragons. Pretty cool.

Baby Buddha getting bathed by nine dragons

Basically everything you touched at this park was good luck so there was this mega Buddha hand that people could go up and rub. In the distance you can see the 88 meter tall Buddha.

This metal mural had all sorts of Buddha worship and sacrifice scenes carved into it.

Their worship method was very interesting to watch. They could pray by these boxes or put money into a slit in these boxes.

Another way of worship is holding sticks of burning incense to their foreheads.

We have a very happy Buddha statue with a bunch of baby Buddhas playing on him. If you notice in the lower left-hand corner the girl is touching one of the babies... all of the babies within touching distance are faded slightly yellow because of all the people that rub them for good luck every day.

At the bottom of the steps leading to the mega Buddha there was a performance put on by Asian monks. They would play peaceful music or dance in a calming style.

After struggling through hoards of people to get to the elevator, we made it to the big Buddha! This thing was massive.

The toenail of the toes were also rubbed to a faded yellow because of how many people would rub them. I love this picture because it captures the Asians in the background showing the admiration for Buddha.

This awesome picture is taken atop one of the temple we saw that day. I had to put my camera on the very edge, tipped slightly, to get the shot. The first time I tried it the camera fell backward but luckily not over the edge. Everyone freaked out but couldn't move because I had posed the perfectly.

Unfortunately though, the second time I tried to take the picture a gust of wind blew and took away my camera cover. That is the little green thing in this picture a couple stories below us.

This picture isn't too weird but we were sitting by this lady on the train back from Wuxi and she decided to put her coat up over her head while she slept... this might be one of those you'd-have-to-have-been-there type things but she creeped us out and we are still laughing about it amongst us teachers.

This last picture is more of a "Oh China" type thing. I found these cookies and they looked pretty dang good for really cheap so I bought them but when I opened them up I found this: I split the two halves of the cookie to discover literally this much frosting between them. Oh China. :D