GONG XI FA CAI

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all the wonderful Bloggers and Silent Readers 

A Very Happy & Prosperous Chinese New Year!

It's time to leave behind all the Snake Bites and Shortcomings of our foes & enemies. To err is humane and to forgive is divine.

Time to gallop on like a Happy & Steady Horse!!

Yeeee Haaww!!

 

 Huat Arrrrr!!!!!

Three Kingdoms (220-280 AD) Mausoleum & Zhuge Liang Memorial Temple

I was excited to find out that the famous Three Kingdom's Warlord Liu Bei was buried at the Huiling Mausoleum in Chengdu. My wife told me many tales of their battles in ancient China that made me ponder about human's greed for power until today. Our human hearts could be so terrible until they waged senseless wars without caring about the lost lives of million innocent families! I pray that it would never happen to this country.

1. The prominent stone sculpture at the entrance of the Zhuge Liang's Memorial Temple and the Mausoleum of Warlord Liu Bei who founded the Shu Kingdom in ancient China. It took me a long time to wait for the crowd to disperse so that I could have the whole rock to myself!

2. This place is very huge with lots of pavilions, shrines, courtyards and beautiful landscapes at every corner.

3. They have 2 rows of showcased shrines of all the famous Three Kingdom's warriors and scholars where their detailed statues were placed as respects by different Emperors from the Tang Dynasty until the Qing Dynasty.

4. I am only posting the few famous ones that many of us know about. The top left one is Guan Yu (Birth Unknown- Died 219 AD), a Major General to Warlord Liu Bei who is today a widely worshiped deity in Taoist Temples worldwide. The bottom left one is Zhang Fei (Birth Unknown - Died 221 AD), another Major General to Warlord Liu Bei. The right one is Liu Bei who founded the Shu Kingdom.

 

5. Prime Minister Zhuge Liang ("Kongming", 181-234 AD). Wise and loyal strategist and Prime Minister to Warlord Liu Bei. He was so smart and popular with the Chinese folks who still respect him until today. Finally, I got to see the real face of Zhuge Liang.

6. Most of us can remember that Takeshi Kaneshiro acted as the wise man Zhuge Liang in the movie "Red Cliff".

7. The whole area has many ancient tablets written beautifully since the Tang Dynasty under the Imperial Orders of the Emperors. I wish that I could read them all.

8. A selfie portrait shot of our memorable and happy trip!

9. I was attracted by their old Chinese designs of joss stick urns which had different figurines. 

10. It was a long walk across the various paths that led us to different pavilions and beautiful courtyards.

11. This walled path is very lovely with tall bamboo groves flanking on both sides.

12. There is a small museum behind this Lion Statue which housed the various ancient figurines unearthed during the Three Kingdoms with much explanations of the history. I do no wish to post the photos which might bore you.

13. Here is another couple shot over the bridge.

14. This is the entrance leading to the tomb of Warlord Liu Bei. It was common to have various statues of animals and scholars lining outside the Emperor's tombs in China.

15. I have no idea whose statue was the famous scholar but I do know that green pants lady is my wife who is now a scholar pursuing her Masters at University Malaya. Good luck to her studies.

16. That's ME!! Cute?

17. The ancient tombs of the China's Emperors were often buried deep inside small hills in round shapes. It was so huge that nobody could take a single shot of the whole view of Liu Bei's tomb.

18. We joined all the visitors to walk in one big circle around the tomb. Here Liu Bei was buried alongside his 2 wives and there was no record on the date of this ancient mausoleum being exactly built.

19. One circle completed. 

If you are a fan of the Three Kingdom's history, you must visit this place in Chengdu - Sichuan Province!

20. I was trying to call SK in Malaysia from Chengdu.

Chunxi Road - Chengdu

In all big cities of the world, I have visited many swanky shopping havens like Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, New York's 5th Avenue, London's Mayfair and Nanjing Road in Shanghai. Here they have Chunxi Road in Chengdu which lines all the big designer names like Prada, GUCCI, Valentino, Dior and etc. I never bought anything there because I cannot afford, so I just did window shopping and look-see & touch.

1. I always prefer to book my hotels right beside or above their subway trains, to save time and money. I took a train to Chunxi road, just 2 stops away.

2. I was the BIGGEST IDIOT in Chengdu to discover out that Chunxi Road was just located 2 blocks behind my hotel. Call me stupid to take a big round in the underground train to reach there. I could have walked there in 10 minutes.

3. We learn along our lives and make mistakes, so it is alright to hit the wall sometimes. I was amazed to see all the big shopping streets when I thought Chengdu was all about Panda Farms and Ancient Villages.

4. Their boulevards are so wide and huge with no cars! A real haven for shoppers.

5. It was Winter, so the skies turned dark at 4.00pm.

6. The Christmas decorations in Chengdu was average but the holiday mood was there at Wangfujing.

It was chilly and cold, so I became naughty again.

 

7. I spent more time admiring at the exterior of the shops than inside.

8. This lovely area was so colourful and brightly lighted up!

9. That was the 2nd Christmas tree I spotted.

10. I met Tony Leung at the basement of the train station on my way home. 

My hand was itchy again.

World Largest Building In Chengdu

I was extremely impressed and amazed at the speed of China's development everywhere at their modern airports, high speed trains, tallest buildings and now, the "Biggest Building In The World". They had a void period of "Cultural Revolution" yet they have overtaken so many countries today.

1. Most of the buildings in Chengdu are lighted up at night with full scaled LED technology screens where they will have colourful patterns dancing its way on the whole building. Suddenly they could flash out live advertisements or even brief TV news on the whole building. My jaws just dropped in disbelief. I have not seen such buildings in Shanghai at all.

2. On our first night in Chengdu, we took their subway train to look for the World's Biggest Building which was opened very recently. It was drizzling lightly and we walked like crazy due to the GPS inaccuracy.

 3. There are several entrances but we entered through the Global Mall.

 4. This is the artist's impression showing how this giant building looked like from above. It has all the convenience to pamper all the families, business associates and tourists. They have hotel, shopping mall, Water Theme Park, Private Beach, Convention Centres and blah blah blah.

You can google HERE

 

 5. The entrance is so high class and nice with all the shiny walls and polished marble flooring!

 6. The ceiling is so high and brightly lit with impressive decors to welcome shoppers.

 7. It was slightly warmer inside, so I flashed my jacket open to show that I wore 3 layers!

 8. All the big brands are there!

9. Every country I visited, I must try their McD and visit their 7-Elevens as a ritual habit. The mall looked empty because I waited for everyone to get out of my camera's range.

10. I behaved like kids again and posed SK's signature "Running Away" 

from loan sharks style.

 11. I know I am naughty. You are just the same!

 12. They used London as their Christmas promotions. Well, I plan to visit London in 2014 and need to pass the hat around to you all. Thanks!

 13. My darling got herself happily lost in the maze.

 14. The patterns of their marble flooring everywhere made my eyes dizzy.

  

15. We were hungry after playing & fooling around so much. We tried our first spicy meal at their Sichuan's Steamboat restaurant which was crowded. The misty air inside was spicy and stung my eyes to cry.

 

 16. Oh My Goodness! My soup was red and spicy hot with their killer peppers!!! My mouth was spitting out flames of FIRE!!!! Arghh!!!

 

 17. My smarter honey chose their herbal soup. Look at their huge vegies and the leaves that looked like IKEA's potted plant.

Luodai Ancient Village - Chengdu

I am always very interested to visit very quaint and ancient towns in China to observe their historical landmarks and architectural buildings.

I always planned my trips ahead by 6-12 months and had to study the places of their attractions. I thought Chengdu was only about Pandas and Hot Flaming Spicy Sichuan Food. I was taken by surprise that they have Mount Emei, Ancient Hakka Villages and a modern city bigger than Bangkok or Singapore.

1. We took a public bus transport from downtown Chengdu and visited this Luodai Ancient Village which has a Hakka community of over 23,000 people. It was a very cold morning at 3 degrees C and the bus took us less than 2 hours to reach this village, 20 km away.

2. This Hakka Village is the nearest to Chengdu and many voted it as the "Best Hakka Town" in China. It was built during the reign of Emperor Linchan during the Three Kingdoms Period - 1,800 years ago.

 3. My wife is always very supportive and followed me everywhere no matter how boring or smelly those places could be. In return, I would follow her to climb all the mountains she fancied, even if I had to drag my fat ass and corpse up the hills. Wakakakaka

 4. There were several clan houses in this village with individual ancient stages for their festive opera shows. This one has a museum too.

5. I entered their museum and was attracted to this old bridal chamber bed which was used during the Qing Dynasty. My immediate thoughts was Blogger SK's lavish traditional wedding and revealing his bride's veil on that Red Chamber Bed!

6. This wall with Dragon's motifs is definitely very old and beautiful.

 

7. Many old buildings have become commercialized but that doesn't matter to me. They need to survive and run businesses too. I did not post all the small shops selling food, snacks and souvenirs as they may take up 50 photos.

8. This is another old stage for operas. There were only 3 performers but no audience. I had goose bumps and walked away quickly.

9. The streets are narrow with local tourists walking on the real ancient slabs of granite rocks. China is so huge with the highest population in the world, therefore their locals are always visiting & discovering all their different provinces. It may take them a lifetime to cover all.

 

10. We entered another Clan House along the narrow alleys and I tried to cheer my wife up. I put up my own Sichuan Mask Changing show to entertain her! I was good and she clapped!

11. Everything is cheap there and I tried almost every small bites available. 

12. The ancient staircase was so unique and I spent 5 minutes gazing it. I imagined the brothel ladies were upstairs waving their silk scarves to lure some Chinese scholars to have tea.

13. Many female folks played mahjong tile games in back lanes!

The men played Chinese Chess in other back lanes. What a sight to behold.

 

14. This is an old pagoda and a rickshaw puller stood in the cold, waiting for clients.

 

15. I spent almost 3 hours in this tiny village looking up and down at their old walls of Chinese architecture.

  

16. This small unique restaurant hung all the dried and waxed goose, pork, buffaloes & even rabbits with stuffed intestines being strung across the ceiling above the patron's head.

 

 17. I was taken aback to see couples playing table tennis and danced merrily in the cold weather! In China, you could often see young & old ladies doing cha-cha, line dances and hip hop numbers along the boulevards in Chengdu, Beijing or even Shanghai.

 18. I walked into every back lane to smell and observe their lifestyles. Here, a seamstress was doing a good business!

19. This is the famous traditional oval shaped houses of the Hakka clans but I discovered that it was a newly built building. At least I got to see the interiors which was interesting.

 

 20. This village still maintains its laid back lifestyles with small vendors selling their wares.

21. I was shocked to see this huge furry pet for sale. Guess what animal it was?

A Hamster! Are you not shocked, Wenn?