We arrived in Chengdu around noon today after a slight delay in exiting the plane. Someone a few rows up (not from our group, thankfully) had (gasp!) a fever, so the authorities had to come on to check him out before we all could leave the plane. After lunch we visited the site of the home of Dufu, one of China's two great national poets.
This one lived in the eighth century during the Tang Dynasty (mmmm.....Tang---I've been dying to use that joke), and it
turns out that his home has been turned into a lovely garden. Unfortunately, the stone pathway across the pond bested Ryan, who received an unexpected dip in Dufu's waters.
In the evening we had another group dinner, where Jen met a new friend as pictured below, and then went to a traditional show.
The best description I have for the show is a kind of Chinese Vaudeville with a bunch of different, seemingly unrelated acts. The only thing that was missing was the bawdy humor, but I guess there could have been some in the songs that we couldn't understand. The two highlights of the show were a shadow puppet performance---that was very cute until a shadow fox killed, dismembered, and swallowed a shadow bunny!---and a "face changing" show. I was initially expecting to see Nicolas Cage and John Travolta reprising their roles from Face/Off, but it actually consisted of some dancers changing their masks impossibly fast with a couple fire breathers thrown in for good measure.
Tomorrow we've got an early morning because we hit the road for a few hours to see the Giant Buddha in Leshan. Now I know that you've probably seen some big buddhas in your local Chinese restaurant, but this is apparently the largest one in the world. It dates back to---you guessed it---the Tang Dynasty! See how I artfully tied that post together?
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