Jack and Clara left today, but they had some recommendations for things that we could try. I always love following someone else’s plan because that means I don’t have to make my own and it’s a plan that has been tried and proven successful!
Wendy and I also learned from yesterday and wanted to avoid the heat of the afternoon. We set out in the morning for a Buddhist temple (Huayan Temple) that Jack and Clara had recommended for its incredible architecture.
A giant golden Buddha statue stood near the entrance, and we wandered through the buildings. We saw some monks, and it seemed like this temple was lived in and used often by the locals. We saw people worshipping, and there were several areas under construction. I enjoyed looking at the architecture, but I also loved chatting with Wendy about the area.
Wendy knew a bit more about the etiquette of Buddhist temples, and she said that it’s a little disrespectful to take pictures in a temple. There were usually signs prohibiting guests from taking pictures of the idols, but after Wendy told me that, I tried to avoid taking pictures of other things that might be sensitive.
We saw a burial room where it seemed that the ashes of monks were buried. We also climbed up to the top of a pagoda, but there wasn’t much to see. We found a little room where guests could rub famous calligraphy onto a paper and keep the paper, probably for good luck.
I was a little surprised that Jack and Clara had spent three hours in this temple, but we decided to keep walking toward the back area. That’s when I really fell in love with the beauty of the area. Behind the temple there was a huge park with a lake and some lovely walking paths in the shade of the trees.
We passed a lotus pond, and I learned that lotus ponds are really important in Buddhist culture. A legend says that when the Buddha was born, he took seven steps and a lotus bloomed in every step. For this reason, the lotus pond was called “Seven-Step Lotus Pond.”
The lotus is an important symbol in Buddhism because the lotus needs muddy water for growth, but when it blooms, the flower is beautiful and pure. This reflects the Buddhist teaching that followers need to maintain purity even though they live in a polluted world. The Christian teaching also reminds followers to be in the world but not of the world. Romans 12:2a says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”
When I was talking about this later with a friend, she pointed out that yes, they are similar, but one of the big differences is that Buddhists expect you to achieve this purity and separation on your own. In Christianity, Jesus teaches us that we can’t achieve any of these things in our own strength—that’s why He came to set an example for us and then die so that He could pay the price for our failures and make a way for Him to help us to do the things that He asks of us. I’m thankful that we don’t have the pressure of accomplishing everything in our own strength.
I enjoyed this part of the temple quite a lot. There weren’t so many people, and the trees provided some nice shade while we walked around the pond and then another lake. I loved the beauty of nature and the calmness and peace that I felt there.
As we were walking and admiring the lotus plants and the beauty of everything, Wendy pointed to the giant lotus leaves. “Did you know that in China, people use the leaves to wrap a chicken and bury it in the ground to cook it?”
“I had no idea! What’s it like?”
Wendy described how you could wrap the whole chicken in the lotus leaf and then cake it in mud before baking it. The process reminded me of a type of cooking that I had seen when I was visiting Ruby in her hometown of Jieyang (Eastern Guangdong).
First we wrapped corn and meat and other foods in tinfoil and then we took everything out back and I saw mounds of dirt. Ruby said that inside the mounds of dirt were very hot bricks that would cook the food. There was a hole for the food to go into, and after we put all of the food in the hole, Ruby’s friends collapsed the mounds of dirt, packing the dirt around the food that we had just buried. After playing some ping pong and drinking some tea, the food was ready to eat. Some of it had to be thrown out because dirt had gotten into the tinfoil. I was afraid that those were the ones that I had wrapped.
That’s what I was imaging when Wendy told me about the mud-baked chicken. After I got home, I explored the topic more on DeepSeek and some suggested websites. Apparently, the chicken is called 叫花鸡 (jiao hua ji) or Beggar’s Chicken. Apparently it was first eaten by a beggar in Jiangsu who wrapped a stolen chicken in lotus leaves and mud because he didn’t have anything else to use to cook the chicken. However, according to legend, several emperors of China ate the dish as they traveled around China incognito.
I really loved learning about the chicken—especially because I’d never heard about it before, and I always love learning new things! After we walked around the park, Wendy asked if I wanted to try the chicken for lunch. She had found a place that served it near our next destination which was another touristy area and an opera house where we planned to watch a Chongqing opera.
We hopped in a taxi and headed to our mud-baked chicken lunch.
The spot was at the edge of the tourist area, and there were lots of mud-covered chickens lined up at the front of the shop. We ordered a chicken and a bowl of iced dessert soup. The owner of the restaurant brought us the chicken, still wrapped in the lotus leaves and some gloves. She helped us to open up the lotus leaves, left us some spicy powder and told us to enjoy.
We let the chicken cool for a few minutes, but our hunger drove us to don the gloves and dig in. It was still pretty hot, but soooo good! And the dessert was nice and refreshing as well.
Next we headed to our Chongqing opera called Chongqing 1949. I read an overview ahead of time so that I would be more likely to understand. The impressive thing about this opera in particular was the stage. The stage rotated, and the lower levels of the seats also rotated with the stage, giving different views of different parts of the performance.
The performance was about the revolutionaries in Chongqing during the fight between the communist party and the Kuomintang party. The opera followed three brothers in particular. One of them seemed to be in prison, one seemed to be a general, and I was unclear about the other one. In the end, the heroes of the opera revolted, but they were all tragically killed. When I asked Wendy about it more later, she said that they were too early. If they had waited just a bit, then help would have come, but they didn’t know that. They fought and died for what they believed.
The story wasn’t developed completely (the opera was only 70 minutes after all), but the effects were very cool to watch!
I was especially glad to enjoy the opera because we were inside in the air conditioning rather than outside in the heat. Definitely a good choice!
Wendy and I walked around the touristy area nearby for just a few minutes. This one was called 磁器口 (ci qi kou), and it was really pretty but also really hot. Wendy got a milk tea, and we took some fun pictures.
After resting for a few minutes in the hotel, we got ready for the highlight of our day and possibly one of the highlights of our time in Chongqing. Wendy found a hill nearby that served BBQ and incredible views. We tried to go a bit later to escape some of the heat. Our taxi took us part way up the mountain, but we still had to climb a bit by ourselves. We passed a couple of BBQ restaurants, but they were mostly empty.
“Well, we can come back in case our restaurant is full.” I suggested.
I was tired and hot by the time we got to the sign with our restaurant. That’s when I realized that it was all outdoor. This was going to be a hot and sticky evening.
“How long is the wait?” I asked the waitress after we told her that there were two people in our party.
“About an hour.” She said.
“Ummm, do you wanna go back to the other restaurant?” I asked Wendy.
“Well, let’s just look around here first.”
We headed into the restaurant and wiggled our way through the tables set close to the ground and lawn chairs next to the tables looking out over the incredible view. We got to a table close to the edge. The sun was setting, and the lighting was beautiful. A guy by himself sat at the table. On the table were a couple of unopened beers and a teapot with a few tea cups.
“Hey, can you help me to take a picture?” The guy asked Wendy. I stepped off to the side while she helped him. I just enjoyed that beautiful view.
After she finished, I asked the guy. “Could we borrow your table to take a few pictures also?”
“Oh, this isn’t my table. It’s just a table for pictures.”
“Perfect!” Wendy said. “Could you help us to take some pictures?”
“Of course!” The guy agreed.
For the next fifteen or twenty minutes, he took many pictures and videos while Wendy and I alternated between posing and laughing. We enjoyed the beginnings of the sunset from the best seats in the entire restaurant and no one else seemed interested in the spot. Everyone else seemed to be focused on their dinner.
“Are you from Chongqing?” I asked our kind and seemingly very professional photographer.
“No, I live in Shandong.”
“Ah, so you’re just traveling here?”
“Well, I’m an actor, so we were filming here, and now I have a little bit of time to explore the city before I fly back home tomorrow.”
“An actor! That’s cool!”
We talked for a bit more before our friend went back to his table, and we went back to the front of the restaurant where we sat on some stools to wait for our table to get ready. By now it was almost our turn. A foreign-looking guy was sitting next to us, and I was in the mood to talk to strangers, so I asked him where he was from.
“I’m from Australia.”
“Oh really? I just visited there last January.”
We talked a bit about where I had been and where he was from, and then I asked him how he ended up here. He explained that he’s taking a gap year and he had traveled to a bunch of countries in Europe and now he was exploring China.
“Wow! How do you communicate?” I asked, amazed that someone could travel alone in China without being able to speak the language.
“Mostly by GoogleTranslate.” He said with a laugh.
“That’s impressive.” A waitress came up at about that time and showed him a translated message on her phone telling him that his table was ready. Seemed to be working out for him pretty well, but I was really thankful that I could speak Chinese and that I had Chinese friends to help me when I didn’t understand something.
A few minutes later, our table was ready, and Wendy and I got a spot with a great view. We took turns cooking the food. Leaning over the hot coals to turn the meat was pretty hot, but we enjoyed some good food. By now it was starting to get dark, so sometimes it was hard to tell if the meat was done, but thankfully we didn’t get sick.
I was a little disappointed that we hadn’t asked the name of the actor and also asked him what he was in so we could look it up. We decided that if he came back over in our direction, we would try to catch him on his way by.
After we’d been eating and chatting and enjoying the views a bit more, we did see him, so we asked him if we could take a picture with him since he’d helped us so much, and then he joined us for a few minutes. He told us a bit about acting in China and how hard it is, especially at the beginning. When he first started, he would work nearly 24-hour days, several days in a row with almost no sleep. I couldn’t imagine.
The actor, whose name is 刘帅良 (Liu Shuailiang) also told us about the most recent TV show that he was in called 扫毒风暴 (Saodu Fengbao; Anti-Drug Storm, 2025). He showed us some pictures, and it looks like an interesting although probably intense show. I always love getting new perspectives on people and their lives, though, and I enjoyed the conversation. From my limited experience in acting (I’ve done a couple different advertisements), I know that it’s not an easy profession, but I’m thankful for people who put in the long hours to give us fun shows to watch.
Today was another fun and exhausting day, and tomorrow is also going to be busy!
