Hi! Long time no post, but I am back in the States with my desktop – it turns out I really hate editing on my otherwise wonderful laptop.

Almost two years ago I went to China and I’ve started editing my photos from there, finally! First up, my first days in Chengdu.

I visited the Wenshu temple, a Buddhist temple said to be established around 500 AD, thought it was destroyed by a fire at the end of the Ming Dynasty and rebuilt in stages, starting in 1681.

The architecture was fantastic, and it was full of trees and green space.

I had coffee there one morning and saw this adorable little kitten playing while its mother watched.

An incredibly lovely latte presentation! It was an incredibly relaxing morning.

There were beautiful, peaceful details like this throughout the entire temple.

At one end of the temple was a small open building full of candles. People wrote on these cards and then tied them the bars which formed the walls.

And a gorgeous lotus flower!

It was wild to go from the peaceful inner temple onto the busy Chengdu streets. Chengdu is a medium-sized Chinese city of 10 million people.

But there was still a lot of green space in Chengdu! And a lovely river running through very close to my hostel.

The very first morning I was there, I walked by a group of women doing a beautiful dance with sticks and flags – one of them invited me to join in and I was able to do a few dances (quite badly!) with them.

Finally, a street seen from the subway stop nearest the temple – a pretty accurate picture of all the ways people got around. I really loved Chengdu and I want to go back some day.