Datong and hutongs, in that order

Hey guys!!  Been super busy, so sorry this post is late.  To make up for it I'm going to try and squeeze in an extra post this week!

So, since I last posted, another week and a half has gone by.  Last week for Wednesday culture night we went to the Laoshe Teahouse.  We snacked on pumpkin seeds and peanuts while sipping tea and enjoying a variety show filled with traditional performances.  The tea was a bit of a joke, and some of the performances were a bit cheesy.  My favorite bit was the changing mask performance, where their masks  "magically" changes every so seconds.  Don't ask me how they do it....I don't know. 

On Thursday we had our weekly test, because that night we left for Datong.  We traveled by sleeper train.  Below you can see a picture of my bed.  It's even smaller than the one in my dorm!  At around 6:30 in the morning we arrived at Datong and were greeted by an explosion of fireworks.  Apparently, there was a wedding that day and it's traditional to be woken by fireworks.

 After we arrived at the hotel, we took showers and ate a delicious buffet breakfast.  The breakfast buffet had toast and some western food, along with chinese dishes.  Yummy!  I hadn't had toast for such a long time.  The hotel was at least 4 stars, and it was nice to have a comfy big bed for once.

Around 9:30 we left to visit the grottos.  Many years ago people carved hundreds of buddha statues into sandstone cliffs.  The picture below are all the girls on the FSP, including our teacher, posing next to an elephant statue (modern statue, not ancient)

When we arrived there was some sort of service going on.

 Of course no service is complete without the sound-guy monk, making sure all the microphones are working smoothly.

 Ok, so here is one of the statues.  It bigger than it looks.

Here's a picture with me next to it for comparison.  Only the lower half fit into the picture, sorry.

Here's a deteriorating buddha statue.  Because sandstone is so soft, it's easy to carve statues, but those statues are also easily washed away by rain.  Really creepy...

 We went to the nine dragon wall next.  Interesting fact: only emperors can have five clawed dragons.  This wall was for someone in the royal family, but not the emperor, so these dragons only have four claws.


Old guy writing on the streets.  there were a lot of these.

 The Hanging Temple, my favorite site so far!! Interesting fact: those long vertical wooden poles don't actually support any weight.  They're just there so tourist can "feel safer".

 Random side of the building, thought the picture came out nice

 Me in the Hanging Temple

 In the afternoon, we went to Mt. Hengshan.  Xing Laoshi and I at the temples.

Some of us climbed all the way to the peak of the mountain.  It doesn't look very impressive, but it took about an hour to summit.

We got back Sunday morning around eight.  Sunday night a couple of us took a confusing trip to Suanlituanr to go find us some Tai food.  The food was good, but maybe not worth the time and effort to find it.  

On Monday another small group and I explored a nearby hutong (narrow street in Beijing).  There was a cute stationary shop and a chocolate shop where you make your own chocolate.  So cute!!!  We made dinosaurs.  The white one is mine.

I'm going to Tibet on Monday, so I'm excited about that.  I'll try to post more since we'll be on break and I don't think we'll have much or any work during the trip.

Ok, back to studying!