I went to Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan province a couple years ago. It's a 10 hour bus ride from Chengdu. Unbeknownst to me, part of our itinerary was to stop at a similar memorial to another devastating earthquake. This one leveled a school though. It had quite an energy to the place too. We got there in the morning and what especially struck me was the silence and respect the Chinese tourists were giving it.

Living in Canada, I'd only seen news coverage of earthquakes and hadn't really seen the damage it can do firsthand. It was a real eye opener: