Greetings all,
In the last update, I mentioned that we would be going to Chaoyang with some friends of ours here in China..well, we did and our trip was awesome! Our friends are originally from Chaoyang, but moved here a couple of years ago and started a business of making handmade jewelry and crafts at a local market. Chaoyang is a small town/city by Chinese standards (roughly 1/2 million people) located in our Lioaning Province, but about 4 ours west of Shenyang. It's known for fossils as noted below on Wikipedia:
Fossils
Liaoning, and in particular Chaoyang, has become the focus of great interest in the world of
palaeontology. During the 1990s, many new, unique and fascinating fossils were discovered in this region. Some of the finds have completely revolutionised our ideas of dinosaurs and shed new light on the origin of birds. Chaoyang's fossils are in the
Jiufotang Formation. These fossils include:
Liaoxipterus, a genus of
ctenochasmatid pterodactyloid pterosaur from the
Lower Cretaceous;
Microraptor, a feathered dinosaur; and several early birds such as
Longipteryx Chaoyangensis,
Sapeornis Yanornis and
Shenzhouraptor an eary bird. Insects have also been found such as
Dictyoptera, a fossilised cockroach and
Hymenoptera, a fossil bee, which also date to the Lower Cretaceous period. A local trade in rare fossils has developed in the wake of the finds, with an estimated sixty vendors gathering in one area, called Ancient Street.
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Our trip started with a 4 hour bus ride (nice bus, clean, even had a stewardess on the bus!)
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| Rod Miller, Sarah Miller with Daisy (Zou Min) in the bus seat behind us |
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Once in Chaoyang, we stayed at a hotel...OK, it said 5 star outside, then 4 star inside...and well, lets just say that the people who give the stars hadn't been there for awhile to check out the star status...it was a little lacking in the star qualities, but it was OK..and it could have been much worse! Here are a couple of photos of the hotel room:
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| Hotel room in the "5 star"...what this doesn't show is the overwhelming cigarette smell and the many carpet burns! |
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| This is the nasty shower mat in the "5 star"...needless to say, it never moved under our feet! |
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| View from our hotel room onto one of the city squares in Chaoyang | |
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Once there, we met some of our friends friends and then it seemed like we were "in"...and so continued our experience in Chaoyang! Everyone really treated us like royalty and wanted to share their life with us and make sure we had a good time...and indeed we did!
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| Rod & Sarah Miller with our Chinese friends. The 2 in black are friends from Shenyang; The man on the left and woman in yellow operate one of the stores selling petrified wood in Shenyang. |
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| No visit would be complete without a meal...we were fed alot...all healthy food..just lots of it! The man on the Left beside Rod is the father of the family from Shenyang and the man on the right is a good friend of his..he took off his time and drove us around all 3 days..amazing! |
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It was raining all day the first day we arrived, but we walked around on the old fossil street and looked in some of the shops and admired the petrified wood, fossils and other natural stone and crafts.
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| View of one of the 2 Buddists temples in Chaoyang, taken from the old market street |
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| Rod playing a "conch" shell to the great delight of the store owner who said it was the first time anyone ever played it! Not sure how many germs were transferred with that little toot, but so far no ill-effects! |
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| Rod and sarah admiring a petrified tree trunk..they are for sale in the stores there...tempting and beautiful tables there made from a "slice" of the stone, but we didn't buy any...shipping it home was too big a challenge for us to even think about! |
Once we were done "shopping", we went back to the hotel and took a shower to get ready to eat...again! This time, we met some different friends who again, treated us like royalty! After dinner, nothing would but that we go out for "KTV"..this is karioki...Chinese style. It is very popular here...Rod, nor I had never done a Karioki and didn't really want to start...but we did and we enjoyed it. Our Chinese friends sang very well and had a good time and there were a few english songs on the machine...so Rod and I did our best to entertain...and I'm sure we did! The Karioki is much different here than in the US. You reserve a small room and sing to your friends only..not to strangers. Everyone sings and everyone just sings and has a good time...no matter how well you sing! I could do that!
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| Our Chinese family at Chaoyang enjoying a meal together |
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| Rod and Sarah singing somthing in English..at the Karioki |
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| Our Chinese family gathering around us at the Karioki club in Chaoyang! |
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The next morning, we got up early and walked around the town a little with our friends and visited one of the Buddist temple towers in Chaoyang.
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| Our Chinese family at one of the Buddist tower temples in Chaoyang |
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Later in the morning, we went up to the Feng Huang mountain. As you know, I am working for Michelin here in China and the name of my project is called "Phoenix"...or in Mandarin Feng Huang..so I really wanted to come to this mountain. It turns out that this mountain is also a big buddist shrine and temple as well as being a beautiful area.
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| Some of the scenery at Feng Huang mountain |
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| Our Chinese family at the base of Feng Huang mountain |
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| Sarah Miller beside the Phoenix wall entrance to Feng Huang mountain |
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| A buddist temple on the Feng Huang mountain |
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| Rod asking questions to Daisy at one of the Buddist shrines on the mountain |
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| Sarah & Rod Miller holding insence sticks at the shrine...we're both Christians and our friends know this...we took the insense sticks as candles and lit one for our parents and our marriage...I know God will understand! |
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| The trail up the mountain had a special beauty after the rain in the fog |
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| Sarah Miller below a sculpture of the Phoenix |
After a good morning on the mountain, time for more eating. This time we were taken to a traditional Chinese country restaurant complete with I'm not sure what all on the table! The one thing I remember clearly was the 1/2 hog's head brought out...complete with eyes and teeth still intact. I did eat some of the meat...but saved the eyeballs for our Chinese guests...who gobbled them up with gusto...I'm not kidding here! I didn't take close-ups because I thought it would have been rude!
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| Guests at our traditional chinese lunch...way too much to eat! |
After lunch, we went to the fossil park where pictures were not allowed much, but it was a fascinating place! We saw a petrified forest and saw the fossils that clearly indicate feathers on some upright alligator looking thing. I'm sorry I don't have photos to prove it...it was forbidden in the site and I didn't want to get my camera confiscated! I did manage to get one of some of the fish... don't tell anyone!
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| Fish fossils at Chaoyang, China...about the size of minnows |
After an afternoon at the fossil park, we went to, you guessed it, to eat again..and then yet another KTV (Karioki) experience...I would have thought they were tired of us by then, but no...they really love to Karioki...all the time!
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| Some of the selections at the restaurant...we didn't choose these little critters though, but I can't be sure we didn't eat them!! |
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| The alligator we didn't choose |
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| Evidently someone else did chose the alligator...he's cut and ready to cook up...yuck! |
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| Sarah & Rod kariokiing witht the best of them! |
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| Daisy, one of our Chinese friends, Sarah & Rod at Karioki | |
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After a late night at the Kariki, we rested and got up early the next morning (Friday) and headed out to look around the shopping street in Chaoyang and found some interesting fossils and more petrified wood!
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| Rod standing in front of a map of China made out of fish fossils |
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| Sarah lusting over a huge flower fossil...if I could have found a way to bring that baby back to the US (it's forbidden)..I would have sprung for it...I loved it! |
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Then onto to more food! This time I took some pictures of the food...sichuan food...really hot and spicy...I couldn't eat everything...but Rod...he sampled all of it!!
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| Lunch at the Sechuan restaurant in Chaoyang...that's Rod's hand and chopsticks going into the Fish soup! |
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| Our Chinese family after lunch at Chaoyang |
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After a packed 3 days, we headed back to Shenyang on the bus and back home...made us appreciate our apartment just a little more! That's about it for today!
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| Our Chinese family having fun at Karioki! |
That's about it for this update...everyone have a great one!
Sarah
