China Chronicles Day 3 (Part II)

Next, T-O-N-Y took us to the Longjin Temple which houses 2 buddhas and has a hall with 500 statues of monks. Picture taking is prohibited in the hall but if you could see those statues, life-size and life-like! Amazing…



Longjin Temple

Then we went around a park where there were 300+ buddha carvings (in and on the cave walls). Wonderful!


there are 300+ stone carvings like these on the inner and outer walls of the caves

And I ate corn on the cob. Man oh man, their corn cobs were huge! Hehehe Ricky and I love corn so we bought and shared a cob; we were happily eating while walking around the park.

Next stop: the Longjin Tea Village. Longjin is China’s best tea. They also call it the Dragonwell Tea. We visited the village (yes, according to the guide, it is an actual village where the villagers' livelihood is producing the tea). The village is situated in the mountanous part of Longjin and tea bushes line the slopes of these mountains. Upon entering the village, there are several rooms where they entertain tourists and guests and treat them to a cup of their famous product. Perfect since I just ate a cob of corn, I could have tea to wash it down ... It smells like seaweed but tastes nothing like seaweed neither does it taste like the Green Tea we have here. It is actually quite good. Locals (or as I call them, Sales Associates, explain the process of creating the tea, from harvesting or picking the leaves to packaging and the different kinds of Dragonwell Tea. They also share the medicinal properties of the tea which has been said to help reduce high levels of cholesterol and 'cure' diabetes. Of course, such a presentation leads to their Sales Pitch and the group places their orders. Ricky bought a canister for himself.

Then, we went to the giftshop, bought some delicious tea candies that look and taste like our turrones de kasuy except that the filling is made of tea leaves and some nuts too, I think. They also make Tea Cookies but we didn't buy any of those, just the Tea Candies...

It was late in the afternoon so we went back into town and checked into the Regal Park Hotel. Now amongst the hotels we stayed in this is my favorite. Actually, medyo bago pa sya but the interiors were nice. The bedside and reading lamps were so cool, I wanted to stash one in our baggage and bring it home. Anyways, I enjoyed our stay there.


Nice lamps...

After unpacking, we decided to go out. No matter if it was so cold...if I remember correctly, it was about 7 degrees outside. We wanted to try and shop in the nearby malls unfortunately, there wasn’t anything to buy so what we (Jane, Diane, Ricky & I) did was we went to Starbucks! Ricky & I bought a tshirt with Starbucks Hangzhou written on it (I suspect this is going to start a collection for us) and Diane bought a tumbler. Since we couldn't go shopping, we did the next best thing: eating! We sampled the dumplings (Wu Da Niang Dumplings) that Tony said were a must-try. As the man said, the dumplings are good and they were! They're not just the regular kind of dumplings we have here, may sabaw sya sa loob although it isn't exactly Siao Long Pao. But, tasty enough. Next, we went to the noodle house that Tony recommended. We wanted to try a bowl but man, the size of the bowl was huge! So, we walked back to the hotel but dropped by KFC first. We checked out what was different on their menu and guess what it was? Corn on the cob. Hehehe Jane asked if I'd care to sample the corn but the huge cob we had earlier was enough to last me for another day or two. So, we went back to the hotel and had a good night’s rest.