Expediccionado: Luoyang Part 2 "Peonies nod in the breeze..."

After breakfast we piled into a small rented tour van, picked up the vice-governor and the mayor made our way out to the much-anticipated Longmen Grottos with a police escort heading up the caravan. I came to love our police escort and the short fart-sounding beep that he would constantly make, at times adding in a full on siren and scolding people over the loud speaker if they weren't getting out of the way fast enough. At one point a car nearly collided with his, to which he responded by screaming something that sounded like "HOO-YA!!!" over the loud speaker. I had no idea what it meant, but it was funny as hell and drew chuckles from everyone on the bus. Here he is, leading us into the oncoming lane:

We pretty much got to cut in line in front of everybody for everything because of the people in our party. I felt like a smug jerk about it on and off all day, but was very thankful for it at the grottos. The site was an utter zoo. Had we not been accompanied by gracious hosts who held us by the arm and encouraged us through the crowds, I don’t think we would have been bold enough to wade through it ourselves and get to the really impressive sights. Here’s an example of the mob:

The grottos were breathtakingly beautiful, situated along the wide, quiet Yi River. There were several dragon boats that passed by as we walked along, fighting the crowds to reach the carvings, and I wished I could be on one of them, serenely floating by. Here are some of my favorite shots of the area:

The grumpy looking dude on the right was my favorite. He is a warrior.

The main Buddha, standing 17 meters high.

Our "entourage" takes advantage of some impressive photo ops at the site.

After the grottos we piled back into the tour bus, which was conveniently waiting for us at the end of our walk. They magically appeared several times over the weekend, always seeming to know where we were and when. it was a little creepy. Our next stop was the Peony Gardens, which only made sense because we were there the weekend of the Peony Festival.

Some uncomfortably crowded piggies in the back of a truck that we saw along the way.

I'm not much into flowers, but I have to say that I was pretty impressed by the Peony Festival. We were welcomed, as we would be at every site during this excursion, by some sort of administrator for the Peony Festival. She was a young woman in a smart blue suit with shiny purple high heels who navigated though the uneven grounds on them with precision, offering explanations for various types of peonies. The garden was enormous and the sweet smell was wonderful. There were several varieties of peonies in many different colors. My favorites were the recently bloomed white ones because they were so smooth and delicate looking.

¡Muy grande!

Purty.

The starers elevated to the status of paparazzi today. This one thought she was being subtle.

A nice pagoda in the garden.

After the Peony Garden, we were treated to another semi-formal lunch with the important guys again. This time, Lisa instructed us beforehand to turn our little pre-set shot glasses upside down into our personal alcohol carafes so that we would not be served any liquor and therefore would not have to toast with it.

This was great. We toasted with tea all afternoon and it was much less awkward. Only one guy mentioned it.

More yummies:

Raw salmon, probably a Chinese take on sashimi, presented with some ice sculptures that Charlie and I both thought were penises at first.

A beautiful glass of tea, my non-alcoholic savior of the afternoon.

Ham hock, as two people explained to me at the table, is very good for the skin. I guess I'll just have to have sub-par skin because I am not eating that.

Smokey flavored tofu cubes: Yum.

Tender hunks of slow-roasted beef: Yum.

Slugs in my soup: No thank you.

This whole fish may not look very pretty, but damn it was good.

Now for my favorite dish of the meal: Broad cold noodles with a garlicky paste, some leafy veggies and a yummy sauce. Oh and they served it in a cool bowl. I slurped this down with pleasure, as did everyone else, and had horrendous garlic breath for the rest of the day.

Neat asymmetrical bowl, possible designed to provide its own noodle-slurping splash guard? No matter how deep into my bowl I stuck my face I still got noodle juice all over my shirt.