Mount Qingcheng

March 21st
A rainy morning set the mood for our trip today. Luckily, there was a street vendor just outside the irrigation center so some of us could buy some umbrellas (for an elevated price for us white people of course). Our tour guide explained the importance of agriculture to the Schuan province and the center’s roles in helping the areas farmland as well as how it doubles as a flood prevention mechanism. As we were lead through the place, we saw some fancy water features (excluding the rain) such as two dragons spewing water out of their mouths. We took a couple battery busses, along with their aggressive drivers, to a look out point where we spent a couple minutes looking out at the river and a few more taking pictures before jumping around on some swinging bridges. After that lovely adventure we went out to climb a mountain, but as none of us really wanted to trudge up a mountain in the rain we just took a cable car up most of the way. At the top of the mountain we wandered around a temple for while before heading back down, ready to get back on the dry bus. Afterwards, we were let loose at a shopping mall to kill some time before supper where we purchased bread, peanut butter and the last jar of Nutella. We then rushed to McDonalds where some of us devoured it like savages (we got an understanding smile from a nice white man). While on the bus waiting to go to supper, we had a woman trying to sell us panda bears from the windows. After supper we were treated to experience a Chinese Opera of sorts. I expected it to be in a large auditorium but it ended up being more of a community theatre of sorts. There was mask changing, shadow puppets, horrid singing (much too shrill than what we are used to), a huge stick puppet that breathed fire, playing of a trumpet that sounded like a bird being run over and some interesting skits. One of them was of a woman and some old man running around the stage with a paddle for a couple minutes which none of us really understood. After the show we went back to Xindu to have some free time before going to bed.
~Sean