I went to the Shaolin Temple and all I got was peed on....

Today was our last full day in Zhengzhou. I think we're all ready for that plane ride tomorrow afternoon. Guangzhou for three days, then overnight in Hong Kong, then home! Of course, there's that God-awful long trans-Pacific flight somewhere in all of that, but we just won't think about that right now...

Yisha had a Gotcha Day for another group of families--I'm guessing those who started travel on the 20th of April--so she couldn't go with us to the Shoalin Temple. So she hired an English-speaking tour guide, "Cindy," to show us around in her stead. We were all a bit nervous about how the kids would handle the two-hour bus ride from Zhengzhou to the Shaolin Temple, but surprisingly enough, it went quite well. I think that Caden is fascinated with the sense of movement he gets when he can look out a bus window. I'm afraid he won't get that sense of movement at 39,000 feet over the north Pacific...and that may very well suck. For many people. But back to the Shaolin Temple...

The first thing we saw was a food vendor. Based on the name alone, I don't think they're getting many English-speaking customers.



As you can see, Caden was ecstatic to be at the world-famous Shaolin Temple with his excessively handsome father:-)

First on the docket was a Kung Fu show. Just as a reminder, the Shaolin Temple is the home of Zen Buddhism and the birthplace of Kung Fu. With it being a holy site and all, I almost expected it to be not blighted by the hand of commercialism. But Zen Buddhist monks are not dummies...they know a cash cow when they see one, I suppose. Between the tourists and the Kung Fu academy(ies) on site, they've managed to do quite well here. But back to the Kung Fu show. It was put on mostly by younger acolytes, I believe. Quite impressive. I missed getting photos of the more famous acts (needle through the pane of glass, leaning on the spear point, breaking the metal bar with the head) because someone (I won't mention any names, but it rhymes with Caden) kept throwing water bottles and other things on the ground during that part of the show. Sorry.





After the Kung Fu show, we walked through the Pagoda Forest, which is where all the past Grand Masters/abbots are buried. Very beautiful and awe-inspiring, when you think about how old the pagodas are.



Later, we toured the temple itself. That was quite impressive. If anyone is a fan of "An Idiot Abroad," here is a picture of the tree the star of the show was beating on for a couple of hours:

That is such a great show.

Lots of pictures to show from the temple grounds, but I'll pick a few that I thought were really interesting.

In the original practice grounds, there are 48 footsteps embedded in the stones, where the monks practiced their Kung Fu. You should just be able to make out the indentations. The mural on the wall is over 500 years old, from the Ming dynasty.

We followed the tour with a nice traditional Chinese meal, which I did not get to enjoy much of, due to the 16-month-old Hoover I had on my lap. Most meals have been that way. The silver lining is, I think I've lost weight while I've been here.

On the way back from the restaurant, we saw this beautiful little park with these interesting statues of men in various Kung Fu poses.


It was shortly after this that my loving, cute, adorable son peed all over me. I repaid him by having him chase bubbles all over the hotel room.


Here are some more random Shaolin Temple photos. Enjoy.





I understand some of you have had questions about what happened to the dogs in the article from the Beijing paper in one of my previous posts. The article talked about a truckload of dogs that had been rescued while on their way either to or from Zhengzhou/Beijing. It was stopped in Beijing, either coming from or going to Zhengzhou...can't remember which. But the important thing is that the dogs were rescued, rather than kebobed.