Songshan

Yeah, we are still telling stories from the first day of our 3-day trip to the Henan Province - I warned you that it was a full day. After seeing the kungfu show, Shaolin Temple, and then wandering through the pagoda forest it was time to head up Songshan - one of the 5 sacred mountains that exist within China.

We wander over to the cable car that take you up to, what we thought was, the top of the mountain. This was a long ride that went up over one peak, dropped into a valley, and then up to the top of another peak. Once we started to cross the valley we were engulfed in fog.
But these clouds were fast moving, as we climbed up the mountain we could watch them wisp around, clear up, and then fully surround you in white again. We managed to see some of the mountain from time to time and we were hoping the it would clear up once we got to the top.
When we got off the cable car we looked around at a lot of white nothing, it's had to say that we were impressed. From there we could see that there was still a lot higher to go and our guide started down the path leading away from the landing.
We walked for maybe 45 minutes or so, up and down more steps then you could count with only a few chances to see anything. Our guide told us we were just walking to a bridge, but it was just too much and when we rested Tina decided that since we couldn't actually see anything that it was time to head back instead of struggling up more steps. I felt that the skies were going to clear any minute and when she asked some other people walking back they said that the bridge was only another 10-15 minutes ahead. I opted to kind of run ahead while Tina started to head back, the guide followed along with me since it had been years since she had actually climbed Songshan.

Ten minutes later and we ware at the suspension bridge, but with no such luck of the fog clearing out.
To get an idea of how it looks on a clear day take a look at photos of people who were lucky enough to be there with nice weather here and here. As soon as we turned around to head back the skies opened up, only with rain instead of nice blue skies. As we wandered back, completely drenched from the rain, the clouds would clear up slightly from time to time and allow us to see some of the scenery.
Tina was now about 15-20 minutes ahead of us on heading back to the cable car, so when the skies cleared up for her she was able to get some good photos...
I was never able to see the side of the mountain as clear as Tina captured in those photos, but I got to walk halfway across a suspension bridge where you could barely see 2 meters in front of you, so we're even. Again, other people managed to go on clearer days and I'll link another photo so you can see a better view of where we were hiking.

Finally back down of the mountain at dusk and we head back to the hotel. We were located kind of in the middle of nowhere, and there was still the torrential downpour going on, so it was just an easy night with a quick meal down in the hotel restaurant while all of our wet items were spread throughout the hotel room with the hopes that they would dry before we had to pack everything up in the morning. Yeah, they didn't dry.

Happy Valentine’s Day or Qixi Festival

Today is the Chinese version of Valentine’s day. The day changes each year due to the lunar calendar, so it's held on the 7th month, 7th day. So, for all you guys who missed it back in February, now is your chance to make it up to your sweeties.

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled post….

Shaolin Temple

After the disorganized performance and lunch, we went to see the actual temple. The temple itself isn’t really anything to brag about and perhaps it's because we have seen way too many of them at this point, but the location of the temple is something to behold. It is set in a valley surrounded by mountains, thus giving it a very peaceful, albeit without tourists, atmosphere.

This temple apparently had been forgotten until Jet Li made a movie about it back in the 80's, and now tourists come by the bus loads, mostly Chinese, though we did see some foreigners.

The Shaolin temple was originally built back in 495 AD, but only one lion statue is original, the rest has been rebuilt. Legend has it that monks here defended one of the emperors from the Tang dynasty by using their kungfu ability and to this date they are the only monks allowed to practice kungfu in China. That being said, many students have come far and wide, including the U.S, to learn the teachings of Kung Fu.

Main entrance

The only original piece of the temple is this lion

Inside of Shaolin Temple

After the temple, we wandered down to see Ta Lin (Forest of Pagodas). Again with the backdrop of Songshan it is quite impressive. There are approximately 240 of these pagodas which stand up to 7 stories high and were built between 620A.D to 1911. They were built for high ranking monks and abbott's.

Just in case the walk is too much for you, a camel has been provided for your convenience.

Ta Lin (Forest of Pagodas)

Every once in awhile a monk is in need of a hand

Songshan in the background

At one point a young lad who is learning Kung Fu at this temple, wanted to take a picture of this laowai, and in return was able to snap a couple of photos of him posing in Kung Fu stance.

Though the temple was a little disappointing, the Forest of Pagodas was not.

Shaolin Temple

Friday morning and we were able to sleep in a little bit, as we didn’t need to meet our tour guide until 09:00. Well rested we set out to see the birthplace of kongfu and see one of the five sacred mountains, Songshan.

Upon arrival at Shoalin temple, were greeted with throngs of tourists, which we knew would happen as it is a major tourist attraction for Chinese. As we wandered through the full parking lot and waited for our guide to grab our entry tickets we laughed at the crowds of people posing in various kungfu style poses out side of the main gate. Tickets in hand we head in through the turn-styles and are told it’ll be a 5-10 minute walk. That’s fine as we are excited to see Shaolin temple and we had also asked if we would be able to see some of the monks doing their training. The temple itself has 15,000 students being trained in the martial arts, with somewhere around 50,000 be trained in at total of nine schools located in the area – this is where the best of the best come (think of Top Gun but for kungfu). We approach one small building that has a few kids practicing outside and some nice statues showing various moves and are ushered up and in alongside hundreds of others, this we are told is the show that we wanted to see and that we should try and grab as seat towards the back in the middle. Theatre in the round on a smaller scale, even Tina’s knees were wedged into the row in front of us and with the darkness on the stage we were worried that we wouldn’t be able to get great photos. That was before we saw that signs saying no photos or video were allowed during the show.

This was mass un-organization at its best. People are trying to climb over each other in the attempt to get seats as others moved out of seat to go and get their photos taken with a few monks up on stage. We briefly considered getting our photos taken with swords or an axe in our hands alongside an old man in a robe and small child doing the splits, but for some reason decided against it.

Can you pick out which four are the tourists?

Sometime after the room was filled past capacity, people standing in the aisles so that some end seats would have a restricted view, they dimmed the lights for the show to start. The stunts that these guys did were truly amazing. We tried to capture some of their movements with our camera, yes did tell us that videos and camera were not allowed but as everyone was taking pictures we figure we would be safe, but they were too quick to get great shots. The only way to describe this would be to say - picture a Cirque Du Soleil show, with a full monk cast and more modest clothing. It the middle of the show they decide to sell DVDs of the show, so people are climbing over seat and passing money to women wandering at the front of the stage – just interfering with being able to see slightly. It got worse about two-thirds of the way through the show when they started handing out photos to the people who had posed earlier. It really was unbelievable how the tourist side of this was run, it was a great show but poorly organized. Leaving after it was over was another issue, as you’ve heard us talk before about everyone’s need to be the first out, here was no different.

From there we walked around a corner and up to a restaurant for lunch where they served us more food then we could ever have eaten. They served sweet & sour chicken which we had always heard was just a western invention and didn’t really exist in China, but we looked around and it wasn’t just us, they were serving it to all of the tour groups.

We were able to enjoy a quick downpour from inside the restaurant, but it had stopped by the time we were leaving and was even giving signs that the sun might just poke through the clouds….

Okay, this has been a long one – this was a full day, so I’ll stop here and let Tina tell you more tomorrow.