Chiwan Temple and a Hike Up Nanshan

On the last day of vacation before Mel and I had to go back to school, we did some touristy things with Jason close to home, in the Shekou area.

First, we took the subway a few stops to Chiwan, the end of the line, to check out Chiwan Temple. When you step out of the subway station there are no directions to the temple, and the area is very industrial and disorientating. We had to do some walking around and hardcore remembering of the google map we'd seen at our apartment to lead us there. That's the front gate in the above photo. It costs 15 yuan ($2.50) to get in.

I've been to a lot of temples, and I think this one is really nice. I've read that it's the largest in the province where we live, Guandong. It dates back to the Song Dynasty (960-1127), but it's obviously had a fresh splash of paint since then.

That's us in front of the bell tower, which is locked so you can't go up.

Directly opposite, they made the mistake of leaving the drum tower open. *bonnnngggggg*

Check out the intricate dragon columns at the main gate.

There were some statues inside telling the story of the temple. The temple was built because an admiral was saved at sea by a goddess. When the admiral planted a tree in her honor, the goddess appeared and told him to also build this temple, plz.

*knock knock*

Temple boobies.

This is the aforementioned tree that the admiral planted. It would be cool to know what's written on all the red paper hanging there.

There's a turtle pond <3 nbsp="nbsp" p="p">

Mel and I in front of the main temple, where people were praying, lighting incense, and offering food to the gods.

You pass this strip of buildings on the way out. Some of them have small displays inside showing the history of the temple (in Chinese only).

Praying for a safe flight home.

Well, next up, we took a quick 10 minute bus ride back to the Sea World area, got some provisions and headed towards Nanshan Mountain. When we look out our kitchen window, we can see Nanshan looking down on us. I knew that you could hike it, but honestly it's been wayyyy too hot to even consider going for a hike. It was so hot today, as well, but we went anyway. Nothing says "I'm ready to hike!" like a bag of "tomato" chips.

Stairs. You don't get to hike anywhere in Asia without the punishment of a million stairs going straight up. There's never any casual, winding paths up the mountain. No, it's always goddamn stairs.

It took about an hour to get to the top, and it was probably 35 degrees in the afternoon sun/smog. We were so hot and tired by the time we got to the peak that our legs wouldn't have taken us much further. This pagoda in the picture above is the reward you find at the top. There were 8-10 people relaxing there, so we had to keep our cool walking past them and pretend like we weren't about to keel over.

The view from the top. It was a smoggy day...smoggy week, really... not even photoshop can clean up these photos! We could see our apartments from here... see the three big apartments sticking up on the coast? We're on the coast too, juuuuust to the right of those.

Of course, going down is faster than going up, but the stairs offer a different sort of punishment for your poor legs on the way down. Halfway along our descent, we noticed the steps were looking pretty wet, though it hadn't rained. A bit farther down and we found our culprit, and he had about 1000 meters of hose with him. Some guy was hosing down the mountain. Whyyyyy? And as we tried to get past his meters and meters of winding hose he just kept pulling and pulling on it. He didn't give a *shit* that is was like looping around our feet and tripping us. Not that we would have had far to fall, we were only on a mountain.

Staiiirrrrrrs.

Some cool carvings in the rocks that we noticed on the way down (we'd gone up path 2, but came down path 1).


Here's one of Shekou's many keystone kops listening to his favorite song as we leave the park at the base of the mountain. The cops in Shekou are so ridiculous, and there are so many of them so you really notice. They all look so young as if daddy's dressed them in their big boy cop uniform, and they're always either napping or staring at their cell phones. They really make you feel secure!

When we'd reached street level, we were HUNGRY! I'm thinking this guy ahead of us was too. He was only wearing underwear; no shoes, nothing. First time I'd seen that in ol' Shekou!

We went to Red Lantern, a Chinese restaurant that's popular with foreigners here. I'm not sure why, other than because it has an English menu? It's exactly the same as a few other places we've eaten in Shekou, that are just small little Chinese dives serving traditional Chinese food. The dishes were hit and miss, the star of the show being the fried rice. I have never seen someone eat so much rice in one sitting as Jason Keddy did that day.

Next, we took Jason to Ren Ren Le, a Chinese Wal-Mart-type department/grocery store near our apartment. It's where we go if we need some quick groceries (well, usually the maid shops for our groceries, but sometimes we go for things, too!) I thought it would be interesting for him, and at least there are prices on all the products so it's a more familiar shopping experience. I think he found the food the most interesting:

Eels or.... snakes?

Dried pig face! The entire face... what do you do with that??

Dog quarters.

Lastly, favorite find of the night: a banana stuffed toy with the words "Jim Carrey" embroidered on it! Which one of these items would you buy if this was your local grocery store?