Dengfeng, China Day 3 (Part 1 - Shaolin Temple)

Asalamualaikum w.b.t and happy Thursday!

I hope my previous post on Xian, China Day 2 is helpful for those who needs information on Xi'an trip. Today, I'm going to continue to share on Luoyang.

22nd Oct 2014 (Day 3)

As usual after we had our breakfast around 8.30 am, we hop on coach and headed to Dengfeng where Shaolin is popular there. We went to the over 1,500 years Shaolin Temple  that bore witness to the rise and fall of several dynasties, and is well known for its ‘Kung Fu’ and also according to Mr Leo (the cute tour guide, still remember? Haha), Jet Li was once student there. How cool is that huh?

 

The coach that took us everywhere there comes with a really nice driver.

From hotel to the temple took about 2 hours and we used highway to get there. The highway there has 6 lanes but only 4 were used while the other 2 in the middle looks like still in construction. But one thing for sure I love about the road is that it is clean, beautified with greenery landscape and definitely NO holes or cracks unlike Malaysia's road! Not that I am not being grateful but yeah..

Anyway once we reached Dengfeng area, on the way to that temple we passed by many private Shaolin schools. These schools are where students able to learn standard school syllabus as well as Kung Fu. Kung Fu has become their only curriculum activity and I wonder, can't we do the same with silat?

Around 10.50 am we finally step foot in the Shaolin area but I would like to WARN you! This place is huge! We spent about 2 hours in there, and yes, by walking. So please ensure that you wear walking shoes or sport shoes. The long walking on uneven ground and stairs was definitely exhausting. Bring also some snacks and drinks in your bag-pack.

There wasn't any security check here like in Terracotta Army , just a normal ticket checking but at few different checkpoints and so please keep your ticket.

The main entrance for Shaolin monastery

From the parking lot to the main entrance we walked for 5 minutes and another 10 minutes to a hall to catch the 11.30 am Shaolin Kung Fu Show. While walking, we saw these young Shaolin students were trained.

Young Shaolin undergo training

Closer looks of the young Shaolin who were coincidentally jogging that morning in our pathway 

The Shaolin Kung Fu Show was a 30 minutes show that was performed by students there. It is free-seating so be fast to catch the best seat in the house. 

There were group performance as well as individual and all of them have their own weapon to play around with. At the end of the performance, 3 Shaolin showed off their skills and then invited the audience to take part.

Shaolin training nearby kept you entertained while waiting 

The statue that can be seen near the performance hall and top right, hit the bell the Shaolin style 

After hitting the bell, they took my picture which I'll show you later and then we queued up to enter the hall.
While waiting in the line, there this cute couple we met.
Bercakap dengan mereka we were like bagai itik dengan ayam, body language that matters haha
And one thing for sure, Shila Amzah is so popular there!

The Shaolin with their respective weapons

That is Aru, my colleague, who was chosen to part of the show.
He won 1st place and presented with Kung Fu vcd, nice!

At 12 noon the show was over and we continued to walk to the Shaolin temple. This means more walking! Good news is the walking this time took about 20 minutes, okay not good.. silly me.

The happy faces BEFORE knowing that we had to walk really far.
And psst.. that guy with the blue flag is Mr Leo ehem haha 

The temple's inside area is 160 x 300 meters, that is, 57,600 square meters. It has 7 main halls on the axis and 7 other halls around, with several yards around the halls. (Taken from wikipedia). With this huge area of course we didn't able to see it all but these are some of the places in the temple that we went to.

At the main entrance of the temple we needed to showed our entry ticket once again. We were told that the original monks and Shaolin masters no longer used this temple and they have moved somewhere peaceful, far from tourist. Most of the workers there were just local people who works for this temple and dressed up like Shaolin.  But of course those young Shaolin we saw earlier were really there to learn Kung Fu. 

The Buddhist praying area where they can also meet up with the monks  

Behind that closed door is where Shaolin masters used to train. Only limited Shaolin masters can train at a time for their comfort. But now this temple is no longer being used for training or meditation purposes due to 'distraction of tourism'.
Well, we did make a lot of noises there.. sorry!

One of the master's meditation centre, the Shaolin Chin (sumpah no idea who he is!)

 

The temple was built on a high ground so as you go further, it became higher. Lots of stairs to climb up to.  

Even in the temple they were selling pomegranates, persimmons and many kind of nuts

This temple tour is most suitable for the Buddhist to really get to know in depth on their religions and also get to pray and met up with monks for wishes. While for Muslim like me, my niyyat was purely to witness the history of well-known martial art and get to know other religions as well to respect them.

And do not insult those they invoke other than Allah , lest they insult Allah in enmity without knowledge. 

Thus We have made pleasing to every community their deeds. Then to their Lord is their return, and He will inform them about what they used to do. (Al-An'am:108)

And if you are a person who loves architecture, the temple and old structures here were pretty impressive. Can you imagine they built all these beautiful structures at times when there is no so- called 'sophisticated technology'? All praise is to Allah ‘Azza wajalla who gave creative brains to them, subhanAllah.

While waiting for our Buddhist colleague, we kept ourselves busy and we were very good at it haha!

Trees there had lived for hundred thousands of years

After touring for almost an hour in that temple, we next continued to walk to the Forest of Pagoda and that I'll share in the next post.

Till then, Assalamualaikum!