Friday, February 22, 2008

Back to the Roots.....Day 6: Jieyang > Chaozhou > Quanzhou

Day 6....the day we left our relatives and went on to the last part of our trip....we travelled to Han Jiang, Chaozhou city to see the 800 yr old XiangZi bridge which is one of the four famous ancient bridges of China and also the 2.6km of ancient city wall....then we went to the 200 yr old KaiYuan temple and took a short trishaw ride around the old town...we then travelled 3-4 hrs to QuanZhou in Fujian to end the nite

Woke up earlier in the morning to have the same breakfast as the past 2 days before we travelled to GuangJiLou in the ancient ChaoZhou city...the 2.6km ancient city wall is still well preserved

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The main city gate....

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And here, in front of the city gate is the famous Xiangzi bridge which made up 24 different style pavilions and towers on the 24 piers and 18 movable wooden boats....It has been around since the song dynasty in 1170AD...When necessary the floating section can be disconnected for the passage of big boats, an innovation that set a precedent in bridge-building history...till today, the boats will be moved to open up the waterways for certain time of the day....

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close up of the wooden boats

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water level gauge in times of flood....the city gate actually has a big barrier which will close will water level raises to prevent flooding in the city

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After that, we visited "Han Wen Gong Chi" at the opposite bank of Han jiang...The temple is built to worship Han Yu, a famous poet and intellectual during the Song Dynasty whom has been posted to chaozhou for only 8 mths but he got rid of the crocodiles which terrorised the locals and also developed education and culture in the area....The Han Jiang is also named after him

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After that, we went to a local shop to buy some local products....

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Our next stop is another famous spot in Chauzhou, Kaiyuan temple. This temple is about 200 years old and the building is developed in a way to follow the imperial palace style...we see gold and dragon all around....here a monk is in charge of ticketing

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Even the door way has a very high barrier....the higher it is, the higher the rank of the official who own this.....this is as high as my knee

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The main temple...

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Very nice garden...

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Because today is day 6 of Chinese New Year, it is very crowded...and finally, I managed to find this.....

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After that, we went for a trishaw ride to the old ancient houses...which one fo them belongs to the scholar from the palace

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A lot of shops like this along the street outside the temple.....

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After the trishaw ride, we went straight to our van and we went for our last teochew lunch at one of the hotel restuarant

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This is another stomach filling meal....

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"Have 1 bottle" branded beer

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The table already full of delicious food

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My uncle went to order 2 more dishes: "Lor" goose meat and fried spare ribs cause he too many days never eat pork liao

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What u think is this on the pork rib plate? Some say is rabbit

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We brought our full stomach back to the van and we left teochew area and guangdong province to go back to fujian....going to quanzhou..the ride is another 3-4 hrs....

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We reached Quanzhou entrance and a lot of advertising board appeared beside the highway entrance

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Inside quanzhou....

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and we saw beautiful lightings on the bridges.....

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When we reached our hotel: Golden Business hotel, the sky is already dark...

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Happened that there is a wedding going on...

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We went to the restuarant and saw the whole place was decorated for a wedding later

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Except for 2 tables at the back...one for another tour group, the other for our group....This time, we are having Hokkien food..something closer to what we have in singapore..

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another food filled table...

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Another fill stomach to the brim meal.....we went up to our room....and saw the beautiful corridor

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The room is the nicest among all the hotel we have stayed

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We tried to go our to the street...but teh wind is strong and is very very cold....coldest nite we had......so we gave up and head back to pack up for our trip home...

continue to last day....

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