day 227: 张掖 (zhangye) = 0km

After two days of digging through the markets and the back alley shops, I finally found 王先生 (Mr. Wang):

There was one thing I especially liked about this guy – his positive mental attitude.

We both agreed that I needed something like this:

And he said he could build it within a few days time.

Cool.

So we’ll see.

…

This way, with a lazy afternoon on my hands, I went to check out the cultural sights of this place.

First and most important of all, there’s the 睡佛, the Giant Sleeping Buddha:

At a length of about 30 meters, it’s supposed to be the largest indoor sleeping Buddha in China.

Unfortunately, the whole area was undergoing construction work.

I wandered about the place snapping pictures here and there in the different exposition halls:

…then someone told me to stop; no photos!

Well, we’ve all heard that one before (March 28th 2008, March 29th 2008, May 14th 2008).

But no worries – there were always so many beautiful things just around the corner to photograph:

Should I thank those people for helping me pick a subject?

Well everything – the nice and the ugly – it all gets boring after a while…

Here’s the famous 木塔 (wooden pagoda) of 张掖 (zhangye):

(one thing that’s funny about this picture: try scrolling it up and down, and it’ll look like the pagoda is growing)

The pagoda is originally from the Sui-dynasty (隋 581-618), but has been restored over and over since then.

…

I drifted about aimlessly, just enjoying a lazy walk in the city:

…taking pictures of the things above:

Then I came to a park called 甘泉公园 (ganquan park):

It was not too warm and not too cool, just perfectly mild, and there were a lot of people out drinking and chatting, looking like they were having a good time.

I sat down in a place where there was a young guy with long hair and a guitar, then I ordered an ice-tea and listened to him sing.

Soundtrack: Unity – “Positive Mental Attitude”

—total: 2879,6km