大慈寺 Dacisi Monastery, Chengdu Tweet This Post
more Chongqing
Luohan Temple, Chongqing I returned to Chongqing the weekend of May 26-28 for another IELTS exam weekend. The city hadn’t changed much in the two weeks since I’d last been there. The weather was still warm but not yet hot, and the cloud cover cast a gray pall over the city. The speaking exams,on Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday, were at SISU, Sichuan International Studies University. Each IELTS speaking exam lasts 11-14 minutes, after which the examiner assigns scores in four catagories. On Sunday, I again ate lunch at Café Liberthé, the French restaurant operated by the Alliance Francaise on campus. This time I had an excellent plate of fried sole, and a large salad. Luohan Temple, Buddha Sunday evening, I wanted some local Sichuan food, so I returned to a restaurant in the Linjiangmen area I’d been to on my first trip. I had two huge plates of food, with stir-fried meats, Beijing duck-style pancakes, and green beans. Why do I seem to eat so much whenever I’m out of town? On Monday, we marked the IELTS writing exams at the British Council offices downtown, a short walk from my hotel. I finished early, about 1:30 PM, so I had the entire afternoon free. I walked to Luohan Temple, and wandered around inside the temple buildings for awhile, taking refuge in a covered walkway during a brief rain shower. Changjiang (Yangtze River), seen from Chaotianmen Square My stomach was a bit upset,
temple fair
faces – temple fair, Wenshu Fang The temple fair is a Chinese New Year tradition; the Year of the Dragon began at midnight on February 23, and after the fireworks subsided, the streets around the temples and shopping areas were thronged with people. I stayed in th e Wenshu Monastery area long enough to get some good shots, then escaped to the safety of less-crowded places. casting shadows Tweet This Post

