What a Good Holiday

Well, where did I leave off? I was at the foot of the great wall with Kathy and friends and we were just steps away from North Korea.

After we finished up taking pictures of North Korea we headed to 5 dragon mountain to a China Buddhist Temple. The temple is called the 5 Dragon Temple. I guess that comes from being on the top of a mountain that looks like it has Dragons laying on it. We had to travel up the mountain in the car and once part of the way up we parked and walked. One of the drivers told us it was 108 steps to the temple. I believe he was right but only for the first level of the temple. I am not sure he knew there was 5 levels of temples until you got to the Buddha cave that housed the Jade Buddha. After climbing the Great Wall this was a little more difficult but none the less, we did it. The temples were very interesting and the views spectacular.

What can I say, we got our exercise for the day. After the temple and the modern day exercising we decided to call it a day and head to the hotel. The hotel we stayed in that night was the Crowne Plaza. It was one of the most beautiful hotels I have ever been in and I have had the privilege of staying in many 5 star hotels. Well, we were put up on the 27th floor and we had a wonderful view of the city. This room was really nice. I had to get two rooms for the night, one for Kathy and I and one for my driver. For this wonderful hotel that would normally cost a couple hundred dollars a night was only $65.00 and that included a buffet breakfast the next morning for us and our driver. I will definitely try to stay there again when I go up to Dandong again. The next day we had to continue on our journey. We stopped at an old bridge that connects China to North Korea. The only problem is that the bridge was bombed by the US Air Force in 1950 during the Korean war. This was one of the most precise bombings the military has ever done. The bridge was destroyed exactly from the boarder half way across the river and included the whole Korean side of the bridge. the bombing had to be so precise so as to not destroy any part of the China side of the structure. If that would have happened it would have been seen as an act of war against China by the United States. The bridge was never rebuilt but the China side of the bridge still stands.

From the bridge we left for a water cave that contains stalactites and stalagmites. This was a living cave in which you had to get in a boat and ride back deep into the cave. The formations in the cave was very pretty and massive. This cave went on forever. It was also very cold inside. You could see your breath. It was awesome.

After this tourist trap we decided to head home. It was going to be a long drive home. I think is was about 3 hours. Not a bad drive when you have a driver and you can just sleep in the back seat. Here is a picture of the three drivers that took all of us up to Dandong. My driver is on the right. If you remember, we named him Nicholas. He told me today that he really likes his American name and his wife does too. He said that she calls to him now by the name Nicholas. He asked me to thank Kathy for the name.

In the next blog I will recap the last day Kathy spent here in China. We spent it with some new very good and fun friends, James and Catherine. They showed us their city.