Henan is often (or really, always) overlooked as the cradle of Chinese civilization. But there is nowhere else in China where such a concentration of former dynasty capitals, ruins, and historical markers exist as there is in Henan. It's one of the reasons why Henanren are so proud of their province, even if most other Chinese people look down on it, calling it backward and the people 'crazy.'
We've pretty much explored what the Northern Song Dynasty, our one true dynasty love, has to offer us in Kaifeng. So Max, Ben and I hopped on a hardseat to Luoyang, the seat of that other Song Dynasty - the Southern Song. We don't like them very much. They took our glory and created a crap cuisine.
Dynasty allegiances aside, Luoyang is an alright city. It's larger than Kaifeng and is more developed, but with that comes more bathroom tiled buildings and higher prices. Most of the sites lay outside of the city, which is actually for the best because it takes you away from all of the traffic and people in China. Well, as much as you can get away from that at a tourist site. But one thing the city does offer is the Southern Song's water banquet. It's Luoyang's famous food like our nightmarkets, spicy peanuts and baozi. It's named the water banquet because it's served 'as fast as flowing water' and because of the 20 course meal, 18 of the courses are soup. For those of you who haven't been to China, there is one very important thing you need to know about food. The grossest imaginable meals ever known to man are the Chinese breakfast, dessert and soup. I try to avoid them at all costs.
And the water banquet is the worst possible manifestation of the latter. We had almond glop sludge soup, vomit soup, dead frog floating soup, spongy meat soup, and 14 other types of soups in the same vein. The two non-soup courses? Cold meat slices and garlic gelatin slabs.
It was awesomely terrifying and hilarious.
The waitstaff was really confused when the three of us didn't touch much. Instead of eating with gusto like the people around us, we let our table brim with hot, cold, and tepid bowls of goo. We watched our table jiggle for a little bit before we ordered a pan of jiaozi. Our waitress just looked at us, then at our table and finally back to us as Ben and I smiled sweetly at her as Max squashed the garlic jello in his fingers.
So, in terms of cuisine, the Northern Song kicks the Southern Song's ass. Northern Song, 1. Southern Song, 0. And yes, we were keeping tally.
The next day we headed over to the White Horse Temple and the Longmen Caves. The White Horse Temple was built when the Song Dynasty moved from Kaifeng to Luoyang and is supposedly one of the oldest temples in China. We were there on Tomb Sweeping Day, so it was full of Chinese people worshipping and paying homage to ancestors. It's this huge expanse of stone walkways, temples, and goldfish ponds. There weren't very many monks walking around and the only ones we saw while we were there were in a rather out-of-the-way garden patch, taking care of their crops. But the gardens within the temple grounds were gorgeous and made the trip worth it.
On the complete other side of the city are the Longmen caves - Henan's claim to fame on UNESCO's World Heritage Site map. The series of buddhist caves were carved into the side of the soft rock found along the Yellow River - soft enough for easy carving, strong enough so people could dig durable homes into the rock. The caves were a lot larger than I was expecting. After going to Gongyi, I thought the statues and caves would be similar in size, but I was blown away by Longmen's enormity. Both in size of carvings and the amount of people packed into the viewing areas.
Many of the statues have been destroyed, kidnapped, or shot by fanatical Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution or looters, hacking off heads to send to museum display cases around the world. But overall, with the prices and the large crowds, the caves just weren't worth it. Gongyi was much more impressive. It was cheaper, no one was there and you could walk inside of the caves. In Luoyang everything is roped off to protect the caves structural integrity from the hordes of tourists flooding it every year. But hey, it's China. There are a lot of people here. I just gotta deal.
In the end, Northern Song 2, Southern Song 1. Boo ya.
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