Pagoda Baby!

So far this pagoda was one of my favorite attractions that I have seen around Hangzhou. It is the Leifeng Pagoda, on the southern end of the West Lake. Although seriously rebuilt, it still has an amazing feel of the meeting between old and new China. Here is the entry at the bottom of the pagoda...the picture is blurry, but at this resolution I dont think you can tell. You get the idea though, I dont think the place looked this nice back when it was built (and that fancy elevator in the middle definately was not there)

On the inside there is an insane amount of carvings on the wall, like multiple peoples' life work. My pictures dont accurately capture the amount of detail, but these panels each stretch all the way around the inside of the pagoda...maybe 8 panels each floor? Then each floor has a different "type" of art.

This is floor 4

Then floor 5 had some kind of carvings, but I was not really sure what it was made out of.

Each little leaf on each tree even had detail. This was a rendition of the 360 degree panoramic view from the pagoda.

Then the top floor (I think it was 6 floors) had the most intricate wood work all the way around.

It was great because each level that I went up I didnt know what to expect next. It was like that Nintendo game "Kung Fu" where you go up a level and you dont know what boss is waiting on the next level of the pagoda...except in this case, it wasnt a villan throwing explosive balls at me, but some of the most intricate beautiful carvin gs I have ever seen. To top it off, I was actually in China where they really practice Kung Fu!

When you all come to visit, we are going to the Leifeng Pagoda at dusk: Fantastic experience.

After the Leifeng Pagoda, we chanced upon this pretty famous restaraunt where we had a hard time ordering. We were with some people who didnt prefer to eat fish so after some difficulty explaining our selective dining tastes to the 3rd waiter we talked to, the guy decided to bring us a chicken dish...with big snails in it.

The snails were ok, BUT we also accidentally ordered that smelly tofu that I told you about that smelled and tasted like camels. I thought that I would give it another chance, only to find that this one also smelled like camels, but literally tasted like poo. I'm pretty good at stomaching food, but I got nothing on "smelly tofu". That was last night, so early this morning, the first thing that I learned how to say was "Chou do fu" which is exactly what I will never order again. You should try it some time though....just to say you did.

Last, I have new friends...approximately 10 of them. I was sitting down in the cafeteria the other day studying and a guy came by to ask to share a booth with me. As soon as I said that my chinese is very poor, all of these heads popped up over the back of the booth like prairie dogs and 8 life insurance sales people on their lunch break came over to talk to me (for 2 hours). They are persistent, but kind of fun to talk to. Whats normal to us, simply amuzes the hell out of them. Today I was sitting and speaking to Lucy in the cafeteria again, and a group of four just came by and asked to sit in on the conversation...but they are so nice, how could we say no?