Thursday, June 19, 2008

Andy's Home Town

Today we visited Kong Tong Mountain, which is only about 10 miles from Pingliang. There is a monastery on the top of the mountain with about 80 monks. We took a tram to the middle of the mountain and walked a series and walkways and steps to reach the top of the mountain. The view was incredible but the stairs were grueling. When we arrived the monks were doing their morning prayers/readings, it was very interesting to watch. We also bought some souvenirs including wooden swords, bracelets, and wooden clickers. We had lunch on top of the mountain which included wild rabbit, whole wheat noodles, mushrooms and herbal tea. Andy didn't want anybody but me today so I carried him all over that mountain, I am going to be sore tomorrow!! After lunch we went pack to Pingliang to rest at the hotel. Pingliang is a nice city, from what I can tell it is probably about as big as Fort Collins, except the population is about 2 million. Everybody lives in apartments so the density is much greater in the cities. For dinner we had western food, which was a welcome break from noodles and rice. We had spaghetti and pizza and it was actually pretty good. I will include a few picture from the city of Pingliang. We went to some local food stand to get some fruit (watermelons and bananas). It was pretty funny to watch the guides, first he would pick up some fruit to taste it before buying any. Then he would carefully double check the scales to make sure they were accurate, and last he would negotiate with the owner for some time until they agreed on a suitable price. It was pretty funny to watch.

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