Carvings and Cable Cars

The other rock carvings were cool too.  It would also be cool if I knew the name of them - I apologize that I don't remember.  But visiting this second part was included in the ticket price (which we got half off for for being students) so of course we had to check them out!  They weren't as mindblowing as the first part, but of course we still enjoyed them.  They were a bit older than Baodingshan's, so that was impressive.

The area we were in was so pretty!  In addition to the carvings, there were pagodas and beautiful paths.  We got some good pictures.  This one is one of my favorite pictures of all time!

We were about to head back to to taxi stop when we saw a sign that said "Pagoda and 2 Large Buddhas".  Pagodas are cool and all, but 2 big buddhas?!  Of course we had to climb up the hundreds of steps to get to that kind of thing.

It was exhausting but we finally made it to the pagoda... which we couldn't even get in!  I'm not so sure about the all white pagoda look anyway.

We looked around us for the buddhas and saw nothing, so we went down some random stairs towards some vendors.  We got to the bottom and alas!  The buddhas were right under us!

Wow!  I had never seen such large buddhas!  It's the kind of thing travelers dream about - finding gigantic buddhas.  At least this traveler does.  We spent a while there staring at those guys.  It was seriously unbelievable.

After that we took a taxi and a couple of busses and found ourselves back in Chongqing City.  We decided to do the cable cars that go across the river!  It was a long wait in line, but we bought some pineapple to pass the time.  They have a fancy way of cutting pineapple here that looks so pretty and appealing.  I've never tried it because it is super sketchy - street vendors cut the pineapples and stick them in bowls of water which is probably not very clean.  It looked so good so I caved and ate it tonight.  And hey, I'm still alive!

The cable car... was probably not worth it.  I don't know.  It was a long wait and a short ride.  The shortness of the ride isn't the problem though - it is how many people they shove into that car!  We had a 2 way ticket, and on our first way we couldn't see anything.

The boys were pretty aggressive on our way back, sprinting to the cable car the second the doors opened to save spots for us ladies.  It was kind of awkward, but I am glad they did that.  The view was amazing!  Bailey and I tried to be thoughtful, though, and did give up our spots halfway through for the ladies stuck in the middle.

After that we went to a hot pot restaurant that Rachel had read about in a travel guide.  Chongqing is THE place for hot pot, if you didn't know.  It was difficult ordering until another sweet girl saw us and helped us through the whole thing with her English knowledge.  This place is full of wonderful people!  Soon enough we were brought out bowls and bowls of meat and vegetables to cook in the mild soup or the very spicy soup.  I liked to cook my food in the mild soup and just dip it in the spicy soup.  I can't even begin to explain how delicious it all was!  Once again my favorite were the quail eggs, but they had some pretty killer beef too.  I think I'm kind of obsessed with hot pot!  We ate lots of food and were so full... we thought the bill was going to be a big one, but in the end we had only spent $6.50 per person!

We love Chongqing!  After some ice cream, it was back to the hostel for us.