Hot Pot, Orientation Part 2, and Dazu Rock Carvings!

Our first weekend in Chongqing, our HR lady, Gloria, and our VISA coordinator lady, Yo-Yo took us exploring around Chongqing! They took us to the Three Gorges River Museum, which had like 10 museums in it! We learned a lot about our humongous city and got to see a lot of things while driving around. They also took us to a Costco-like store called Metro, where we stalked up on Western food and had a ball doing it! Mmmmm pasta!

They carried the bride in this! So tiny!

Afterwards, they took us to our first Hot Pot experience! Hot Pot is huge in the Sichuan province, along with spicy food, of course. I definitely built up my spice tolerance after Thailand but I am nowhere near  loving spicy food. The Hot Pot was split in half, half spicy, half regular. We tried a lot of interesting things, cow stomach (weird texture), duck blood (like jello), and duck intestine (like chicken). By the end I couldn't feel the bottom half of my face and my lips and mouth were pretty swollen from the spice. But we had so much fun with Gloria and Yo-Yo!

Zach and Melinda, who didn't bat an eyelash as she shoveled down the spicy food down like it was candy!

The damage.

They took us next door to an area called Hong Nga Tong, which was beautiful! They kept giving us more and more things to try and I earned the nickname, "Chi Huo," which means I'll try anything! I'll take it! 

Yo-Yo and I trying something weird!

Dinner on the Yangtze River, crazy!

Zach, Justin, Anokhi and Me! Our little family!

The next weekend was the Chongqing orientation for CIEE. After work on Friday, they put us in a taxi and drove us across town where we were staying in the California Inn, weird right?? 

We got a yummy dinner and then called it a night, ready to meet the rest of the people in our city! 

There were 10 people in our orientation that were all pretty nice! Some of it was pretty redundant since we had already started teaching but it was fun hear about the different teaching situations that other people were in. The other people are all at universities and completely the opposite from us, obviously! Some are out in the mountains and very rural.

After some classes about how to teach the university students (zzzzzz) they took us for a tea ceremony! It was so interesting! We tried green, black and oolong tea! Everything was very formal and organized. They never skip a step and it was fascinating to learn about the theories and reasons behind everything. 

 Justin sitting on an ancient log

tea ceremony

 mahjong! I really wanna learn!

That night, we all went out to a KTV, these are Karaoke clubs that are basically as common as Starbucks are in America! You pay hourly for a private room and then pick whatever songs you want, it was sooooo fun! They love Western songs so we sang the night away and had a great first time at KTV! 

This past weekend we met up with a guy from our orientation, Sean, and some of his friends who were going to the Dazu Rock Carvings! We had absolutely no idea what they were or how we were getting there we just knew we had to meet him at the bus station at 8:30. We made the journey to the metro, about a 20 minute walk, and then took a 30 minute subway ride to the bus station where we met up with Sean and 10 British girls. We bought our tickets and learned that it is a 2 hour bus ride away! Haha Anokhi and I both thought this was going to be a half hour long bus ride and we would be back around 2, maybe see a movie? Oh how wrong we were....Once we arrived in Dazu, we had to take a city bus to catch another bus up to the carvings. It was a huge ordeal. 5 hours later...we made it!

 The rock carvings were super cool though and I loved being surrounded by Buddhism again. The rock carvings were super detailed and big and beautiful!

Anokhi and I on the bus to Dazu!

 Justin modeling with a rock carving

 Rub the belly!

Some of the carvings were created in the 7th century AD! They are based on Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucianist beliefs and all in the hills of Dazu. It was so interesting and intricate!

 Anokhi entering the Temple of Doom!

 Zach and Anokhi!

Justin got to be in a movie! We aren't sure what it's for but it was exciting!

Then we went and prayed in the Buddhist Temple, which was a little different than the Wats in Thailand but still so beautiful and fun to visit! 

While waiting at the bus station we were swarmed by these teens who wanted pics! We definitely feel like celebrities here!

Justin, Sean, Zach and I 

We definitely napped on the rides home and stopped at Pizza Hut (a fancy restaurant  here, btw) before ending our 15 hour day with a movie night with the boys at home! So much for our quick jaunt out to the caves! It was definitely a long and tiring day but it makes me so excited to travel more around here and see the many things around us! 

"If it never rained, nothing would ever grow."

~Oprah