Wuxi woes

It was hot. Humid. And our bank was closed.  

Not closed for lunch. Or just for the day. Closed. Gone. A la "welcome to China, where construction is happening 24 hours a day and a bank can disappear overnight" closed. You gotta love this place. 

So off we trudged to the next ATM we knew of. Already sweating (and maybe whining just a tad) I suggested we consider just throwing in the towel on our trip to Wuxi and going home to sit by the A/C. An idea my husband cruelly nixed. So money finally in hand, we hailed a cab to the bus station. 

It should be noted that co-workers had told Brian we could get a private car to and from Wuxi for 600RMB (just shy of $100). Well, we've turned in to real misers here in China (you can live so cheaply here, who wouldn't!?!?) so it became a matter of pride that we do this trip as cheaply as possible. So with two 28RMB round trip bus tickets in hand, we were thinking we were pretty dang cool.  Forty minutes later we were in Wuxi and on a city bus to Ling Shan for 2RMB each. That's right. Total trip cost so far: 60RMB. We rock. What we didn't realize was that taking the the 2RMB city bus meant it would take 2 hours to drive what should be a 30 minute trip. But hey, the bus was weakly air conditioned so I wasn't complaining.

Four hours after leaving our apartment, we finally arrive at Ling Shan and faint when we realize the admission price is nearly $30 per person! That's almost a month's worth of groceries here! Talk about tourist trap--they get you out in the middle of nowhere and realize you're willing to pay almost anything since you bothered to make the trip.

So what is Ling Shan? Ling Shan is the site of a 1,000 year old Buddhist Temple (which it turns out you can't really explore), an 88m statue of Buddha (9th tallest statue in the world) and two palaces. Friends' opinions had ranged from really enjoying Ling Shan to describing it as Chinese Disneyland. Brian and I are definitely in the latter camp. We wanted to leave almost the moment we entered. The only thing historic about Ling Shan is the temple. The rest is an artificial, manufactured tourist trap. The statue was built in 1996. The two palaces were completed in 2008. And the clincher--there is a gaudy "musical dynamic fountain" with a huge lotus flower that spins and opens up to reveal baby Buddha, complete with waterworks and light show. And when you leave, you're forced thru a gift store and food court the size of Costco. 

So we climbed up to the base of the statue, snapped some photos of interesting details and agreed that despite the ticket price, we had no desire to stay and explore in the hideous heat. We started walking back to the bus stop, knowing that TGIFridays was waiting for us back in town. Hello cheeseburgers and margaritas! Miraculously, there was a cab passing by and our Scrooge-like approach to this trip went out the window. For 95RMB we made it back to Wuxi in a mere 30 minutes only to find that like our bank, TGIFriday was no longer in business. What a day.


Meanwhile back here in Jiangyin it's been raining the last few days and I couldn't be happier. We leave for Australia in 15 days and the temperature in Perth today is only 63! I promise the lower the temperature and humidity, the cheerier my blogs will get!

Five Signet Palace

Tacky lotus fountain with Buddha in the distance

Fountain detail

Buff warrior

Another statue of Buddha fighting off devils

Prayer tablets were for sale everywhere.

You know it's bad when you start taking photos of colorful garbage....

For those not up to the climb, there were several smaller replicas of Buddha

View from the top

Why does he look unphased by the heat???

When I look like this!?!?!

Carnivorous fish gutter decor

Prayer wheel

Almost free!!