Friday, May 30, 2008

Ginkgo, Motorcycles, Hefei, Jiuhua Shan






At the temple we were shown some nice trees. The first one, I understood to be a Bodhi Tree, the same type tree that Buddha sat under when he reached enlightenment. There were also some nice Ginkgo trees. Ginkgo is dates back 270 million years and is considered a living fossil. The leaves and nuts are used in Chinese medicine. Here's a link for more information on Ginkgo:
It was now time to return to Chengdu. Our next stop was a flight east to to Hefei and then on to Jiuhua Shan. On the way back I snapped pictures of some motorcycle riders carrying various things. Many people have motorcycle's and if they are not solely used for transportation then they are loaded to the max.
Our guide Ying Ying took us to the airport and got us on the plane safely. It was late afternoon and we got into Hefei when it was dark. Our new guide was Wu Han. His chosen English name was Bob. Wu Han was self taught in English and never had English speaking clients before. In fact, I'm not sure that he even had talked to someone in English before us but he was thrilled to have the chance. Wu Han took us to a restaurant in Hefei and we were shown to a small room. It is common to have private rooms in restaurants. Ours was hot and full of mosquitoes which didn't settle down until the airconditioner cooled the room off. The food was good though and after dinner we headed off into the night to Jiuhua Shan. It was hard to stay awake as we had a long day. After riding for several hours and traveling up a mountain road on our last leg we arrived at our hotel and settled in for the night. We were to meet Wu Han in the morning after breakfast.
Top Right: Bodhi Tree.
Top Left: Ginkgo.
Center: A decoratively shaped Ginkgo tree.
Bottom Right: Motorcycle rider with large baskets. Helmets are not too common in China from what we observed.
Bottom Left: A rider with empty baskets stacked behind him instead of hanging on the sides.

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