Wuxi, China - Day 3 (continued)...

Monday is typically the day that the swimmers have off (they swim on both Saturday and Sunday). As such, it was the perfect day to "take off" and explore the points of attraction for the city. My host chose to take me to two of the most special in the area. The Grand Buddha at Lingshan and Three Kingdom City.

Grand Buddha at Lingshan
The Grand Buddha is a religious "park" that serves as a major tourist destination for both locals and non-locals. It features many shrines and temples to Buddhism and the centerpiece is a huge 88 meter high (96 feet) gold colored statue of Buddha. It one of the largest freestanding statues of Buddha in the world. It's a very special place for the Chinese as they are primarily a Buddhist people. The entire park is on a grand scale and because it is a real religious shrine (and museum), all of the art and building decorations are made of the finest material they could find. There is an incredible amount of solid gold, Jade, marble and expensive wood carvings throughout. The place is LITERALLY worth a billion dollars.

The temples were really humbling places as they were so ornate and decorative. Symbolism is everywhere and just like for the very religious at home, it is a place of worship and to be revered. Everything in China has meaning and there is a specific way to move and specific things not to do. It can be very intimidating when you have no idea what you are doing because you really do not want to mess up. My host's were very good at preventing me from making a fool of myself. It was a very informative and cultural day.

Me in front of "Jolly Buddha", who has many kids playing on him.

Coach Xu and I in front of one of the Grand Temples (yes, the domes are made of real gold).

Three Kingdom City

After spending the bulk of the day at Lingshan, we moved to another place called Three Kingdom City. Three Kingdom City is an amusement park style place that is build upon the site where a very popular TV historical series of the same name is filmed. It's basically a film park for the series, which is set in the Han Dynasty period (206BC-220). It was very cool. There were warriors fighting on horse back and several wonderful and historically built buildings. It's also set on the shore of beautiful Lake Tai.

Sitting on the Kings Throne.

Lake Tai

After finishing there (10 hours between the two places), there was really only one other thing to do for the day. That was a very "official" dinner hosted by Mr. Fan and attended by the Principal and one of the Directors of the Wuxi Sports School, along with myself, Coach Xu and Holly (the Interpreter). Mr. Fan's niece also came along to make sure everyone got home safe.

Chinese dinners are a big deal and this one was no different. Great food shared among the group and many toasts to the new friendships we've made over the past few days. It was very nice. Now that my stomach is better, I was able to enjoy the food much more.

Today is all business, with a formal lecture to the schools coaches (all sports) and then leading practice for the older swimmers. I'm a little nervous, but I'm sure it will go fine.