July 25

The Shaolin Temple complex. Birthplace of Kung fu.
The "pagoda forest": Many buddhist monks are buried here - very serene.
Students at Shaolin demonstrate their skills. We have some cool video too.
Buddhas at the Longmen grottos range from 17.5 meters
-to 2 centimeters.

We hired a car and a guide in Zhengzhou and went to the Shaolin Temple where kung fu originated. There are several other kung fu schools around the Song Shan area, but many still are willing to pay the big bucks to go to the original. Jet Li rocketed this place into stardom by making a movie here about the temple. The Temple area is lovely once you get through the Universal Studios atmoshere of the entrance - It was not as Disneyesque as the Buddha at Polin however; so we hurried past the souvenier stores and learned about the Bodidharma who meditated in the woods for 9 years while his disciples imitated the movements of the animals around them and developed this martial art from which so many others emerged. We saw a rousing demonstration of kung fu from the students and took lots of pictures for the gang back at Libby's dojo.Then we went on to the Longmen grottos. Here are thousands of Buddhas carved into the face of a cliff. The smallest is less than 4 centimeters and the biggest is more than 17 meters. Many of them were defaced by thieves and the Red Guard, and it made me ill to think of the two heads that sit in a New York museum while the bodies are here. An empress had the biggest one carved (in her own image - cheeky!) and when the light reflects off the river in the morning, the halo around the head is illuminated. Her eyes follow you wherever you walk. Remarkable carving. We took a boat back to the parking lot and had a magnificent view of the entire cliff.