Got up bright and early to check out, store our main luggage, and eat a small breakfast at the hotel restaurant. They served pickled carrots, black stuff, shredded potato doused in vinegar, a boiled egg, and steamed rice. It was free but the reason for that is clear: it tasted completely cruddy.

It was still drizzling a little bit in the morning but we were safe on the tour bus for an hour or two, heading towards the Song Mountain region.

We had the option of seeing the Longman Grottos if we didn't see the ones in Datong, which Emery didn't, so we decided to check it out. The Longman Grottos had carvings of smaller Buddhas in interesting yoga-like poses but much of the statues were eroded and seemed no where near as majestic as Yungang's. Longman had way fewer caves to view, more steps to climb, larger groups of tourists, even on as icky of a day as it was today, and a higher priced admission fee. In fact, Emery and I spent most of our time staring at ferry boats on the Yi River, which was on the opposite side of the grottoes. My overall assessment of these grottoes: Pass.

Becky, from the new tour group, walked with us across the bridges and around the river to meet our group at the parking lot. We listened to Tomic argue with the bus driver while we drove to our hotel by the Shaolin place.

We checked into this real run-down place called Dharma Hall, literally next to the martial arts training center. We had group lunch at the hotel restaurant. It was one of those places with a lazy susan on the table. Tomic ordered all the dishes, making sure to include a good mix of foods that catered to both western and local Chinese tastes. Everyone ate the kungpao chicken but hardly anyone touched the dish that included the chicken feet and head (it was just garnish anyway). The meal was not bad at all but nothing extraordinary.

Tomic led us to get seats for two kungfu shows. The first was an outdoor demonstration of various positions to channel their qi, spear fighting, and taijijian (sword fighting).

The second show was in an auditorium. Before the show even started, on-site photographers were hustling people to take pictures with some of the martial arts students. A cheesy, commercialized introduction video played then several of the students came out whipping out their foil weapons. They did a few tricks like throw a needle through glass to pop a balloon and contort their bodies into all kinds of shapes. I hoped they would end up sparring but it never happened.

My favorite part though was when they showcased the different animal forms/styles such as the praying mantis, eagle, tiger, monkey, snake, and scorpion. Each style required a different body strength points to utilize.

The hostess of the show was amusing in an unintentional way too. She was this clean-cut Chinese woman in a glittery red dress suit and really poor English. I couldn't make out what she was saying when she was speaking but there was this one part of the show when she called up some volunteers to participate in learning an animal style on stage. She called up a Chinese guy, a Chinese girl, and some Western guy with a smarmy look on his face. The audience, of course, clapped the loudest for the white guy because he had the most ridiculous moves to imitate. so he won a "prize," a VCD of the show. The hostess seemed to want to quickly shoo him off stage but the guy stood there with a dumb look on his face for at least a minute. I wasn't sure if she meant, "please seat yourself" or "see you again" but it sounded "see you please," which cracked me up because "see you" as in "bye-bye" is too casual to be combined with "please." It doesn't even make sense.

After the show, the group went to see the Shaolin Temple. The temples didn't interest me too much since I had already seen so many of them but watching the martial arts students train and play basketball was pretty cool.

While walking around snack and souvenir alley, Emery and I spotted a lone camel just hanging out on a small bridge with a photo booth vendor so we came by and took a few shots. It had a crooked hump and foamed at the mouth a little when it grinned.

When we caught up with the group, they were all lingering around the Pagoda Forest. There were supposed to be about 228 stone or brick pagodas but it didn't seem like that many at the time. My camera also ran out of batteries...

On the way back from the Pagoda Forest, I looked into a bed of clovers to find a four-leaf one. Another Chinese tourist found one and gave it to me. It's sitting between some pages in my phrase book now. I'll laminate it when I get home. :)

Shared Expenses
Longman Grotto admission 240Y (120Y each)
pineapple popcicle 3Y
group lunch 61Y (29 each + drink)
snacks from convenience store 18Y
VCD souvenirs 30Y
umbrella 10Y

Total = 397Y approx. $58US

* Saturday, May, 9, 2009