Emei Mountain, Sichuan Province, China - photo album

Frisbeehead · Wed Dec 06, 2017 11:39 pm

Finally finished uploading a some ~300 picture album to imgur of my trip to Emei Mountain in Sichuan, when I was studying in China. It was a surreal and beautiful place, and for the first time during my whole time in China, there were almost no other people - just me and my classmates.

We went in March, but almost the entire mountain past a certain elevation was covered in ice and snow. It was perhaps the coolest place I have ever seen with my own eyes, and I thought it would be cool to share with you guys

Thu Dec 07, 2017 12:09 am

Thanks for sharing, looks nice! Any good teas there to be had?

Thu Dec 07, 2017 11:26 am

Some nice photos in there. It is very interesting to see with the snow. I went a while back, but in the end of June. It was a little cold, but no snow and the people who got conned into renting a jacket regretted it. Beautiful place. I don't have any photos though since I forgot to charge my camera that day!

debunix · Sat Dec 09, 2017 11:27 am

Gorgeous place, and lovely photos of the trees struggling along the mountain ridges, and the magnificent setting for the sculptures, and impressive dedication it gets to view them.

And: Sichuan: how was the food? And the tea? Enough peppers to keep you warm in all that snow?

Frisbeehead · Sat Dec 09, 2017 12:14 pm

debunix wrote: ↑
Sat Dec 09, 2017 11:27 am
Gorgeous place, and lovely photos of the trees struggling along the mountain ridges, and the magnificent setting for the sculptures, and impressive dedication it gets to view them.

And: Sichuan: how was the food? And the tea? Enough peppers to keep you warm in all that snow?

How was the food? Oh boy, how to describe...The food in Sichuan was delicious, and is probably now one of my favorite cuisines that I've tried in the place of origin. I love spicy food, and my Sichuan fit all of my preferences when it came to dishes. I have a collection of photos I took of food that I had all over China, if you want to check it out you can look through them:

Sichuan isn't known for its tea, but I did have some decent green tea while I was there. I know they grow tea on Mt. Emei, mostly green tea I believe. In Sichuan tea houses they don't have the highest quality tea, but the tea houses aren't really for connoisseurs, they're for just hanging out, drinking tea, and chatting or playing mahjong or cards. The atmosphere at some of the tea houses was really nice, especially the tea house at People's Park and a couple others. I mostly just drank some standard Mao Feng or Zhu Ye Qing in a big mug or directly out of a large gaiwan, doing homework, studying Chinese, or chatting with friends. I really miss that.

Unfortunately on the mountain there wasn't any good food. The hike to the top from the place the bus dropped us off was around 7 hours, and we had to spend the night at a monastery on the mountain before making the final trek to the top early the next morning. There was a small bed and breakfast sort of place near the monastery that had food (at a pretty steep price, of course), but it wasn't anything to write home about.

I miss the food in Chengdu very much, it's unfortunate that there aren't any good authentic Chinese restaurants where I live. Chicago has a couple I've heard, but nothing compares to going to Chengdu and trying the food there.

Hotpot (huoguo) was probably my favorite food there. A big pot filled with boiling, firey red spicy oil on top of a burner that you dip all sorts of raw ingredients into. My favorite ingredients were the fatty beef, lamb, fried tofu, lotus root, and thinly sliced pork. I think there's some pictures of hotpot in the album above.

Sat Dec 09, 2017 2:07 pm

Mmm your food and drink images made me totally hungry. That spicy fiery red boiling oil dip reminds me of Piemontese Bagna Cauda where you dip fresh vegetables into simmering olive oil with lots of garlic and anchovy. Thanks for posting the photo albums.