Jiurifeng Hotel Leshan

... I took the bus to the end of the Y fork and hiked down to the central meeting point to take another bus to the other end of the Y fork. For the most part, I had the trail for my self as the Chinese visitors tended to congregate around the lakes or pools or waterfalls, hoping on and off the bus along the way. The 3 legs have a distance of 17km, 18km and 14km one way so it is impossible to walk everything in one day. Since overnighting in the park is ...

... playground.

It was a monk called Hai Tong who initiated the project. His concern was for the safety of the people who earned their living around the confluence of the three rivers. Tempestuous waters ensured that boat accidents were numerous and the simple people put the disaster down to the presence of a water spirit. So Hai Tong decided to carve a statue beside the river thinking that the Buddha would bring the water spirit under control. After 20 years ...

... for about a week. They planned a trip to the Gongga Shan area ( Minya Konka/Mt. Gongga), not to climb the mountain but to hike to area from where they can see the mountain. After a long discussion with regard to where, when and how to go, I joined them and we headed out at 6pm since the road was closed during the day. The girl at the reception told us its a 3 hour ride; it turned out to be 6 hours. We arrived late at the village where we stayed with ...

... d missed the bus and had to wait over an hour for the next one. We were all ready to lay into Tomic for not booking a private transfer but gave him a break when we discovered his father had been rushed to hospital. When we eventually got back to the hotel all I could think about was food and bed, so Alex and I got ourselves a cute rooftop table surrounded by little fairy lights and the neon of the surrounding buildings at the Thai restaurant on the hotel grounds and got an early night.

... 1512;ה ל"בצלם דמות תבנית 93; ברא אותו"?
• 7;ום חמישי רצוף של גשם, לפי הסטטי 05;טיקה הפרטי 14; שלי ב ...

... and tried to chase away one stall owner while I was in the middle of giving him money. It was at about that time I remembered that in Chengdu, most street stalls are illegal. Such a pity. China is not quite China without street stalls. But then again, part of the reason Chengdu looks so nice (and even classy/stylish/fashionable/shiny in that area) is because of the lack of hawkers. So, the plan for tomorrow is to relax. And if I can't manage to do nothing, to at least not do very much.

Volcanic eruptions linked to mass extinction 29 May 2009 Researchers show the first ever concrete link between massive ancient volcanic activity and global mass extinctions. Geologists have long been aware that vast and explosive volcanic activity seems to coincide with some of the planet's largest mass extinctions. But, until now, they had no tangible evidence for a cause and effect link. In a new study published in Science this week, a team of geologists shows that massive ...

... from the top of the cliff we were walking on. We were finally there... Then we had to wait 20 minutes to descent the steps one by frigging one to the bottom of its feet. We chose a bad day to travel. It was the national holiday...It was jam-packed. You don't really realise just how big this thing is until you stand by its foot, which is taller then me. We saw a few more 'miniature' versions of this Buddha along the way but we didn't have time to see ...

We arrived in Emei Shan at around lunch time, checked into the hotel and had lunch. We finally had a menu that offered fried noodles (so far they have all been in soup or cold) so gorged on chicken and pork noodles. It was drizzling outside so we decided it was not worth paying the full entry ticket price for half a drizzly day so we went to visit 2 monasteries that are nearby. Fuhu Monastery was the first and it was beautiful. It was nestled among the trees on the side of ...

... me they were mean though, which I needed to see to believe... The first "joking monkey zone," as the translation called it, was more of the former description. Lots of photographers offered pictures with the monkeys, and you could buy food packets to feed them. It wasn't until further up the mountain that I witnessed the latter. First, I didn't realize how smart the monkeys were and that they could see the food through my mesh bag, so I had ...