Wooooo!

Well, the day began with the ever-so-delicious buffet breakfast at our hotel in Luoyaug and a slow booking of our tour bus. On the ride towards The Longmen Grotto and The White Horse Temple, our tour guide tells us that we get the opportunity to go to the geology museum that day. We all cheered with joy. After all, what’s more exciting than rocks?! Unfortunately, our glee went for a glum turn once we were told we had to wait for tomorrow.

The Longmen Grotto is home to early practices of Buddhism with fantastic sculptures and gorgeous scenery. The heat was sweltering hot and actually taking in the interesting history wasn’t quite so easy. Walking up the carved steps turned into a crawl as the sun had its way with our tourist interests. We managed to do it luckily, and were rewarded with stunning craftsmanship our humans’ past. Much to our surprise, we got the opportunity to eat at another hotel for lunch with a bit too much of an authentic taste. We Americans have a difficult time with eating shrimp with eyes intact.

The drive for The White Horse Temple was on the longer end, but getting to see the first temple of China was worth it. Our brief stroll on our way for it, though, was a typical downside; being flogged by venders and beggars. After a ten minute survival, we got to a very beautiful and well kept up temple. It was a very pure and genuine place of prayer. Surprisingly enough, the monks seemed to have a slightly cold behavior in the presence of tourists. We’re just taking pictures and mildly exploiting their sacred land, personally, I was expecting them to be bringing us cookies with a warm smile. Never-the-less, the group appeared to enjoy the temple and a few got goods from the merchants on the way back towards the bus.

We had a simpler evening that began dinner at, what? A hotel! Yes, who knew we’d be so blessed with Western-style food of Orange Chicken and French Fries? Well, it’s become obvious ACIS just loves us and rewards with their candied planning. The rest of the night was tired and pleasant as we went to bed earlier to wake up and pack our bags for our transfer to Zhengzhou in the morning.

-Sean Barry