Fengdu Ghost City (Day 3576 - 9/9/19)

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They are back in their room after just finishing an excursion. They were moving the whole time, so there were no breaks in between where he could make comments on the vlog. On the excursion, they stopped by the Fengdu Ghost City. Stephen explains that it was similar to the other old cities in the path of the dam in that a lot of it ended up being underwater. On the other hand, on the other side of the dam is the city that was built up in 20 years. Stephen says that they stopped at the Fengdu Ghost City because they were visiting the Jade Emperor City. He talks about how it was beautiful and had a lot of religious sites.

The 1st level is reserved for Buddhism, so it has a lot of Buddhist temples. There is also a lot of incense which is directed towards a large Buddha statue. Stephen says that you can see 3 mountains from the first level. One mountain represents humans, the 2nd mountain represents the netherworld, and the 3rd mountain in the middle represents heaven which is where the jade emperor lived. They had to switch from taking a large bus to taking a smaller bus as they got higher up. Stephen compared the twisty roads to get to the higher levels to the roads of backwoods West Virginia.

They arrived at the top area which is for Daoism. The tour guide explained that some people who visit these temples are both Buddhist and Daoist because these 2 religions don't majorly conflict with each other. At the Daoist temple, you're supposed to ring this giant bell 3 times to signify "Hello". Then, you got to a temple where the middle doorway is reserved for monks, the left doorway is for men, and the right doorway is for women. Men have to enter with their left foot first and women have to enter with their right foot first. Next, you pray and light incense. After leaving the temple, there is a large drum on the left that you hit to signify that you're leaving. During the excursion, they also saw other levels with some smaller temples. At one point, they found a slide mad of granite or marble. They wanted to try it, but the tour guide heavily recommended not to because it's very dangerous.

Next, Stephen and Mallory walked hand-in-hand through the Lover's Pass. You're supposed to walk through it while holding hands with your significant other. If you knock down these bells hanging above the passage, then you get to keep them as a souvenir. Stephen was holding hands with Mal and holding the vlog camera, so only Mal was able to try and knock down the bells. He comments that Mal is a bit too short to knock down these bells. Mal says that Rhonda was able to knock a bell down. Afterwards, they head back down with half of their group deciding to take the bus back down. But, they decided to walk the 500-600 steps down. It was drizzling which made the steps slippery, so they had to be very careful. On the way down, they saw some more temples which the tour guide also gave explanations for.

Stephen talks about how there is so much humidity. He took a shower this morning, but it was a waste of time because he started sweating after being outside for only 15 minutes. Mal says that it's currently 83°F with 83% humidity which makes it feel like 94°F. Stephen says that they will eventually be going to Beijing which he heard was very dry. He hopes that it feels like Las Vegas since when he was in Las Vegas it was 105°F and he didn't even sweat. They are still going down the river and are now at Fuling.

Stephen says that it's a gigantic city and that it looks like Manhattan. He wonders how long this city has been around since the other cities they saw have been built in the last 20 years. Stephen talks about how the opposite side of this large city is where all the historic buildings are. Then, he talks about how it's been hazy the entire time they've been on this cruise. Stephen says that they've had a lot of downtime since they only have 1 excursion per day on this cruise ship. They've have been spending a lot of time in their room watching Chinese infomercials. Stephen mentions that he bought Dragon Quest 2 and started playing it since he already finished Dragon Quest on Day 3569 already. They have dinner where the whole table sings "Happy Birthday" to Mark.