Tuesday, May 8, 2018

The Road to Shu Revisited

I joined Hope to walk the Road to Shu once again this year from March 13 - April 1.  A group of 6 oversea Chinese plus Hope made up a very interesting adventure.  KC, Becky and Clare are my friends.  Fang and David are two friends and decided to join this tour together from the west coast.  The two group pictures below were taken from outside the Green Cloud Corridor; and by the Tiger's Mouth at Ming Yeu (Bright Moon) Gorge.

We traveled from ChengDu, via LongZhong, Zitong, Puan, Jiang Mon Guan, ZhauWha, Guangyuan, then back to ChengDu.  The You Tasi Flowers, cypress trees, and the flagstones roads were even more enchanting to me than last year.  Now I have been through it once, and can notice things that I might have missed last year. 

We saw up close the "King of the ancient cypress" , which is two thousand and three hundred years old, just  outside the Green Cloud Corridor. 



 We also went to see this old temple which is closed to outside visitors.  Because of Hope's status as the ambassador of the Road to Shu, we were allowed in this time. The old fresco were dated from Ming Dynesty.  But the original drafts were made in the Tong Dysnesty.  All two hundred and nine stories described in the fresco were about the life of Sher Jei Mo Ni.

 We took a group picture with the manager of the temple.
One can never tired of looking at the sea of the amazing yellow flowers of You Tasi.




 



And the beautiful flagstone road:



 


 

 

 

And of course the gorgeous cypress trees:
 

 







We also enjoyed the old towns, temples, the old house lodging, the nice food, hot springs, foot massage, the group's kidding around, etc.etc.

The bridge leading to LongZhong:
 The beautiful bridge in Two Scholar Brother's Cave:
 The stone lion from North Wei dynasty, just staying exposed to all the elements.
 The first time I saw an owl as part of a temple's roof :
 The White Tower outside LongZhong:
 Does this not look like Zhang Fei?
 Sweet dumplings treat in a hotel room!
 We were so happy to see the old gate of PuAn from the window!
 Hope met her old village friend in DaChau:
 The lovely garden hotel in ZhouWha:
 At the roof garden of Ms. Lei in GuangYuan:Ms. Lei is on Hope's left.
 Bright Moon Gorge:
 Thousand Budda Cliff:
 On top of the city wall of ZhouWha:
 Playing with the puppets in LongZhong:

And of course the wonderful Ms. Li: