In other news, I'm back home. By that, I mean home home - back in the good ol' US of A. My pictures can upload much faster here and, hopefully, I'll be able to catch up on my blog posts.
I am trying. Really. I am trying.
*breathes and tries*
In the beginning, there was nothing. On the first day, the earth was paved so that people could walk from one place to the next. On the second, energy (or chi) (or Felice is totally making this up) was created, so that bald humans could control their spiritual energy in this physical world. And on the third day, the greatest day because it is a day of honor and rest, Buddha made... the caves and molded them in His image.
...In short, we set out a quest for to the Longmen Grottoes (龙门石窟) just outside of Luoyang (洛阳).
First, we got directions from our hosts at the hostel in Dengfeng (see last blog post). They told us what bus to take, where we should get off, and how we should get back. She even wrote a little note for us to give to the bus driver, so he would tell us when to get off.
It was a little bit complicated because we had chosen to stay in Dengfeng for that night, instead of moving to a hostel in Luoyang. We had to take a (3 hour? 2 hour? 4 hour? I honestly can't remember) bus ride early in the morning.
So we took the bus. Got off a stop or so outside the city of Luoyang... after sleeping (somehow) through an extremely bumpy and dangerous ride... only to step out into...
Uh...
Guys?
Where are we?
There's a road over there. And a road over there. And... I think that's a highway ramp.
Uh oh.
It's ok. There's a Chinese couple that also got off. We can just follow the- WAAAIITT! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?! DON'T GET IN THAT TAXI!
DON'T LEAVE US!!!
...They left us.
So we walked. There were buildings, yes. And there were dried corn husks lining the sidewalks. For the most part, though, there was nobody walking the streets. It was a weird feeling... like we had just walked out of the busy, crowded streets of an overpopulated Chinese city into...
...the TWILIGHT ZONE!
(Side note: Does anyone who is reading this... who went to my elementary school... remember the play that we did in 5th grade? It was a musical comedy nightmare type thing where one of my classmates, a redhead named Will, mysteriously welcomed the audience aka our parents into the HIGHLIGHT ZONE. And um... this side note doesn't really have a point. I just remember that play everytime I think of the Twilight Zone. Not that I think about the Twilight Zone a lot, but.. er.. ok... I'll stop now).
So. The streets were empty.
A taxi passed by... and we waved it down. The driver stuck his head out.
"你们去哪儿?" <Where are you going?>
(And yes. We understood the Chinese through thought-speak English, Animorphs-style.)
(Please... don't judge.)
(Ahem.)
We told the driver.
And he named a price.
One of my fellow travelers immediately shook his head. "No." He wanted to use the meter, and he didn't want Chinese cab drivers to think it was OK to cheat foreigners.
But, bottom line? He said no.
...
I think the other traveler and I glared at him at that point.
But we kept on walking. And walking...
...And walking.
Aaaaand...
CAB!!!
This guy agreed to use the meter.
We climbed in. And proceeded to all fall asleep.
I tried to stay awake. I really did... but, er... I couldn't. And, apparently, the other two fell asleep too. We could have been kidnapped and cut open and harvested for organs or, worse... the taxi driver could have taken an extremely roundabout route to the grottoes... and then we would have really been in trouble.
Still. We slept. We slept for quite a while (it was a longer trip than I thought it would be). I struggled to open my eyes from time to time, to make sure we weren't going anywhere shady, only to watch the taxi driver eye us confused..ly... from time to time.
We made it there. It was beautiful - because, indeed, the Buddha did make this in his own image:
More pretty pictures to come in the next post.
Cuz, um... I am hungry.
hooray more posts!
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