{"id":2918,"date":"2017-01-16T22:25:54","date_gmt":"2017-01-16T12:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.celestialtaichi.com.au\/?p=2918"},"modified":"2017-02-09T22:37:03","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T12:37:03","slug":"highlights-of-2016-china-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/highlights-of-2016-china-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Highlights of 2016 China Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sixteen students of Celestial College and their friends (3 western faces among 13 Chinese Malaysian\/Taiwanese Australians which gave us a cultural and language tourist advantage) enjoyed a fascinating 13 days sightseeing tour around China\u2019s Sichuan Province.<\/strong>\u00a0\"\"<\/strong> The tour was once again hosted by Grand Master Eng Chor. It was Karen\u2019s third trip to China and Spencer\u2019s first. Some of our highlights are summarised below.<\/p>\n

Yangtze Cruise – Three Gorges Dam, early history along Yangtze<\/strong>
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Spectacular scenery<\/strong> – hills and low mountains rising high above the banks of the river.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Engineering feat – the world\u2019s largest dam<\/strong> has five big locks enabling large ships, including our cruise ship, to move past the dam more than 600 km upstream to the large industrial city of Chongqing.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One new city built to house some of the 1.4 million people displaced as towns and farms were flooded by dam induced rising river levels.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Colourful mockups of village and family life<\/strong> as it was for some of the minority group river people centuries ago.
\n\"\"\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Contemplation<\/strong> on the effect of this project on China\u2019s people, environment and economy.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A fast train ride<\/strong> and bus connection further west to 3000m Mt Emei<\/strong>.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Trekked with crowds of fellow Chinese tourists and pilgrims, by foot and cable car, to the very beautiful Golden Summi<\/strong>t, shrouded in cloud.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Temples<\/strong> and an evening performance<\/strong> enhanced the cultural visit with colour, action and an appreciation of Buddhism.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 71m high Big Buddha,<\/strong> carved out of a very big red rock face, is quite spectacular!<\/p>\n

Chengdu – ancient irrigation system, Poet Du Fu, Pandas<\/strong>, shopping, very hot and humid
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Chengdu, China\u2019s fifth largest city<\/strong> and the capital of Sichuan Province without the China megacity feel.
\n\"\"\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Large irrigation system established by father and son 2200 years ago, and still working today.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A visit to the garden and (rebuilt) Chengdu home of China\u2019s hugely influential poet, Du Fu<\/strong> (712 – 771), tried to buy English translation.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Pandas<\/strong> (giant and red) at the Chengdu Research Base for Giant Panda Breeding.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Shopping in an ancient village redesigned to cater for modern shoppers and tourists but couldn\u2019t buy a $5 Rolex watch!<\/p>\n

Banquets, beer, wine and LOTS OF FUN!!<\/strong>
\n\"\"\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Two banquets daily!!<\/strong>\u00a0 While Spencer loved every morsel, he\u2019s now off Chinese food for 6 months and, of course, on a diet. Sichuan food is peppery, not chili hot.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Chinese wine is not often good, but Karen found a few interesting drops for sharing, resorting to beer, Chinese whisky and brandy with fruit juice.<\/p>\n

Tai Chi<\/strong>
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 6.30am Tai Chi with Grand Master Eng Chor<\/strong> in sometimes very interesting car parks.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The cruise ship\u2019s Dr Lei<\/strong> was a medical doctor, an acupuncturist and a tai chi master, and some of us enjoyed his morning tai chi sessions.\u00a0 Dr Lei gave a very enlightening seminar on Chinese medicine and acupuncture,<\/strong> and Spencer was treated rewardingly for low back pain.<\/p>\n

\"\"Most of all though, we shared great fun together!!! We got along tremendously and with great humour, making the whole time a fantastic experience. Thank you Sam for looking after us so well. Spencer\u2019s experience was new and exciting, Karen\u2019s a view of a different, more laid back and quite beautiful part of China.<\/p>\n

Karen Coulston & Spencer Field, Eltham<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sixteen students of Celestial College and their friends (3 western faces among 13 Chinese Malaysian\/Taiwanese Australians which gave us a cultural and language tourist advantage) enjoyed a fascinating 13 days sightseeing tour around China\u2019s Sichuan Province.\u00a0 The tour was once again hosted by Grand Master Eng Chor. It was Karen\u2019s third trip to China and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2918"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2925,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2918\/revisions\/2925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}