Luoyang and the Longmen Caves

After our trip up the Yangzi we arrived in Yichang. We spent a night and a day in Yichang, but in the end it was just another big city - China is full of them! We did an over night train to Zhengzhou where we wasted little time before heading to Luoyang. It just seems to be one city after another here, and it a person really starts to appreciate how many people 1.3 billion is! We'll spare you of pictures of these cities, because in the end we didn't feel they had too much to offer and their just big cities anyways.

Luayang was a nice place to spend a couple days though, and we managed to get a few 'good eats' in here. This is a picture taken in the 'old town' in Luoyang. A bit of a mix, old buildings with traditional architecture, with you typical modern cars that fill the streets of coarse!The highlight here was the Longmen caves though. A cliff side filled with caves (or grottoes as the Chinese describe) where Buddha images have been carved into the stone. Again, all this was done thousands of years ago! And they don't settle with just one, they have to do 100s and throw in a few huge ones as well.Here's a picture with Jillene... gives it a bit of scale.

Another one, showing how impressive it is and how much work must have gone into digging out and carving intricate designs in each one of these caves.
A few big suckers for good measure...
From a distance.

And this picture has nothing to do with the Longmen Caves (other than it was taken here), but everything to do with China! Notice anything wrong with this kids pants? Yup, crotchless pants, and if you're 5 or under they are in style. Parents have their kids wear these things from new born until well after they are toilet trained (until about the age you shouldn't be whipping it out in public anymore). It is all about convenience. If the kid has to you, you just go, no matter where they are. One the street, middle of the side walk. High traffic area like right where you get on/off a bus? Doesn't matter... I kid you not, we arrived into one of our 'nicer' hotels one night and a kid was pulling a squatter right in the middle of the lobby. Nobody gave it a second glance. We see it so much, we're almost used to it now... almost! The moral of the story, if your walking down the street and see a puddle of water, its probably not water so walk around. And if you see something else, don't blame the dog, because it probably wasn't a dog!