Day 5 (9/19): Mount Emei > Chengdu

After the hotel buffet breakfast our coach took us to a shuttle bus station about five minutes drive from the hotel. It took us nearly two hours to reach the Mount Emei Scenic Area Entrance. With an additional RMB10 from each of us we avoided the 10-minute hike to the cable car station. Our shuttle bus took us via an official channel directly to the station instead. As it was Saturday the place was jam packed with tourists. It took nearly 45 minutes queuing time for us to get into the cable car which can hold up to 100 people. And we witnessed a scuffle between a local tourist guide and the station staff. The ride was about five minutes. As normal it was very foggy up there. And taking a clear sky photo was almost impossible (less than 15% chance they say). I did use Nik Color Efex Pro via Photoshop PS4 to brighten up some photos. Well there’s nothing much that I can do. Towards the end of our stay at the Mount it started to rain. And we’d our lunch (surprising quite good) up there before taking the cable car downhill. Our shutter bus then took us to the Baoguo Temple and Sheng Jishi Bronze Bell, and finally the Town Square (Welcome Guest Square) to view some religious sculptures and artificial waterfall etc.

For dinner we went to the Changshengbaoyu (Ever Win Abalone Restaurant), a Shunde Cantonese style high end restaurant for its rice with abalone (thin slice only with mushroom – see photo). And we loved the Cantonese style steamed chicken as we missed the favor and its tenderness. Then we attended the 20:00 culture show. As we arrived about 20 minutes earlier our tour guides arranged specially for us to go to the backstage for some of us to try on the stage garments and learn the hand shadow play from the Master. During the hour long presentation of the seven parts show I took quite a few photos (it’s allowed) by setting the ISO at 3200 (w/o flash) and zoom out most of the time to 200mm. I post only selectively highlight from each part. After the show we spent 20 minutes at a so called Narrow Lane and Broad Lane area. The Narrow lane has since (in recent years) broadened to match the Broad counterpart in order to accommodate more bars and restaurants. Then we called it a day and returned to the hotel.

Equipment Used: Nikon D3 + 70-200/f2.8; Nikon F6 + 17-35/f2.8 with Fujifilm Reala ASA 100 film (Fujifilm scanner SLP800) and Lumix LX3 mainly for the food photos.
Peter: Canon Powershot SD400

Day 6 (9/20): Chengdu > Hong Kong

For a change it’s a trouble free and smooth ride back to Hong Kong. I did not take any photo that day in China.

Overall we all enjoyed the trip. During the six-day tour we were entranced by the vistas of Jiuzhaigou, fascinated by the lovely Panda and hugely entertained by the cultural show especially the “Face Change”. More important we treasured the over 40 years’ friendship of our high school classmates (so far we’ve reconnected 172 same year graduates).