Today we decided to tick a tourist spot off our list so set out for Lingyin Temple, a buddhist temple west of West Lake.
I have to say it wasn’t one of our most successful journeys… we misunderstood the bus route, missed our stop, then had to navigate our way with a map that proudly stated “not to scale.” So about 45 mins later we finally made it to the bus stop at the end of lingyin road, only to realise that we didn’t actually have any cash and we were heading to a temple in the middle of nowhere, with no food. Sheer stubbornness made us plough on – and we were not to be disappointed. We arrived at the outskirts of the temple parkland only to find that they’d been wiley enough to install an ATM by the souvenir stalls!
So lunch was some very spicy noodles from a food stall by the ticket office. When I say spicy, I mean blowing-the-roof-of-your-mouth-off-spicy, but strangely addictive! They were similar to the noodles at the night market; served cold with cucumber strips and chilli sauce. They were displayed slightly differently though – they were all packed up in readymade clear plastic tubs, which I thought were ready to eat. However, when I asked for one, the stall owner opened the tub, tossed the contents (noodles and cucumber) in chilli sauce and other spices, then re-packed it up. Delicious, but absolutely impossible to eat without dribbling noodles all over your chin, so not first date fodder. However, for 5rmb (50p) you can’t go wrong!
We arrived in Kashgar late Saturday afternoon. We were dusty and simply focussed on getting clean again! The following day we went out to the Kashgar Sunday Markets. Kashgar has been a main trading city since the early days of the Silk Route. We are not far from the Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan boarders (Russia to the North) so it has always been a focus for trade. The Sunday Market has been operating since those days. Like any animal market – it is a real social event for the farmers that come into town. Donkey, Cows, Goats and Sheep (as well as Watermelons) were all being traded. We wandered around for a couple of hours, just fascinated by the people watching. Later a couple of decided to jump on to of the truck to get the overall perspective – it was teeming with people at this stage.
Once again we left early and went to our one attraction of the day. We have a lot of extra days in Beijing so we can take our time. Which is nice since the traffic here is pretty bad, it lets us take things slow and relax. Today we saw the Temple of Heaven, where the emperors since the Ming dynasty have been worshipping Heaven, as early as the 1300′s. It was kind of overcast but still pretty cool and exciting. We walked around the whole park which had some awesome trails through rows of trees. When worshipping Heaven there were many different phases throughout the ritual with ceremonial sacrifices. There was also a phase of dancing and singing. Walking along the path you could see many people singing or dancing to music or doing Tai Chi on the paths. It was really relaxing.
On Sunday we had a lazy day and me thte rest of our group and went out for a meal, ready for the trip to begin for real on the 11th with a trip to the Great Wall, not a bad start. As you can see from the photos (hopefully, i am writing this before trying to upload any, so fingers crossed), the scenery is amazing, as is the wall itself. It is a baffling structure in many ways, its size, location, the reason for its construction….all suggest madness really. And in many ways it was a crazy idea, but one that was carried out nonetheless and has stood the test of time (not to mention invasions) and is still in remarkable condition. We wandered along it for about two hours or so, then somewhat unbelievably took the toboggan ride to the village at the bottom of the hill!
This Chinese eggplant recipe belongs to both the best Chinese recipes and Chinese vegetarian recipes. When I have it on my table, it disappears fast.
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