Assalamualaikum w.b.t dear believers!
Salam saiyidul ayyam and happy barakah Jumuah.
All praise is to Allah s.w.t and may peace be upon our dearest prophet Muhammad s.a.w and his companions.
Yesterday, I shared my tour in the Shaolin Temple see Luoyang, China Day 3 (Part 1 - Shaolin Temple) and today will be on the Forest of Pagoda. Forest of Pagoda is the buried place for the master of Shaolin temple, juga bermaksud kami melihat kubur sami Buddha..err.. We weren't aware of this until Mr Leo ehem.. told us about it and so as Muslim I look at it as an opportunity to see other religions custom. This actually strengthened my faith even more and I see that Islam is indeed such beautiful religion that touches on every aspect of our life here and the hereafter.
The last place we visited was the temple and from there we again walked for 10 minutes to the pagoda. We kept complaining how tiring it was walking in not suitable shoes and climbing stairs and you know what did Mr Leo said? We are NOT healthy. Just a lil walk and complaints a lot. Wait whaaat?? It was not lil, each places were so far away from one place to another and... fine. No wonder Chinese there are so healthy, wherever they go they'll walk or cycle. Jealous!
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| More places to visit to but I don't think you can finish it in just one day. Somewhere on that mountain is where it used to be the monk's meditation cave, the cave is still there though. |
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| Not sure whether they are Shaolin or just workers who dressed up like one. They were actually selling things, Calligraphy perhaps. Sorry, don't understand Mandarin. |
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| Some local people selling Buddhist prayer beads by the pathway. And that hand not to say Hi to me but more to "No picture please!" and obviously I ignored them, oopss! |
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| Pagoda Forest here we come! There's cable car too but we didn't get a chance to ride one and I bet it'll definitely be awesome! |
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| There were also some souvenir shops |
After complaining and mumbling and of course enjoying the breath taking scenery, we finally arrived at these pagodas, pwheeh!
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| Each pagoda vary in heights, the height indicates the monk's ranking level. What level? I don't know. But I was told that the higher the pagoda means the 'religious' the monk is during his lifetime. 9 is the highest level if I'm not mistaken. |
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| Lots more in there as these were from 791 AD during the Tang Dynasty through the Song Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty, Ming Dynasty, and Qing Dynasty. |
One of the interesting facts was that if you observe very carefully at the lowest part of the pagoda, you will be able to see some shapes carved on the stone. There was one pagoda for the late monk who took care of this monastery and his pagoda was carved with shapes like laptop, bullet train and few other things that I can't remember. These carving are symbolize possessions for him to bring along in his life after death.
In other word would be, now (since he already passed-away), he have laptop as well as bullet train to be used in his hereafter life. So I was thinking, monks were not supposed to have any desire towards materialism including wife, new clothe and sometimes even the desire to talk! But after death he can finally gets it all. Even the bullet train. Wow.
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| Remember Aru? He became so popular after that Kung Fu show. The man second from right is one of local people who wish to take photo with us. Not sure whose the tourist here, haha. |
We thought that we were supposed to go back the way we came and we gonna die along the way! But miracles happened, time for buggy ride (about 5 minutes ride). Ya Allah sujud syukur! So no worries, no injuries or death taken part in the making of this story lol. Anyway, the ticket for the Kung Fu show, temple entry and this buggy ride is inclusive in our package.
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| The ride of miracle! Haha! |
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| While queuing for buggy, I saw these lovely ladies. It was like watching Mandarin series when I was at secondary school, simply authentic! |
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| The final view in the monastery. Mountains on your left and right making it such a soothing scenery. Souvenirs shops waiting outside for you to grab on. |
Around 2 pm we finished touring and went to a vegetarian restaurant for lunch. The restaurant is about 20 - 30 minutes from that monastery and I don't know the name of that restaurant sorry. Actually once you got out from the Shaolin temple,you can see a lot of places to eat along the road including Halal and vegetarian restaurants.
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| This restaurant makes me felt as if I'm in another era of Chinese's Dynasty, mesmerizing! |
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| You can choose to dine indoor or outdoor and enjoy the peaceful ambiance. |
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| There were few other cuisines served to us but since I didn't eat any of them, including this one (because although it was vegetarian, I still do not have faith it is Halal so I ate Mamee cup) so I just took this one picture of the food. This is bun or pau in Malay that is served with a bowl of spicy sauce (sambal) |
Somewhere near that restaurant there were few hawkers selling nuts and fruits so we bought some from them and it was really cheap!
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| This uncle selling varies of nuts like almonds, walnuts and peanuts as well as fresh tamarinds. |
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| And this uncle selling fresh fruits but to me their mandarin orange and pomegranates were a bit sour. Love the persimmons though! Sweet and juicy like tomatoes! |
Around 3.30 pm we went back to Luoyang town and reached at 7.00 pm, about time for dinner. So we went back to yesterday's Halal restaurant but this time the foods were so much better because we said what we would like to eat and Mr Leo ordered it.
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| Grateful faces as we did starved for the whole day and only instant noodles. The polite guy next to me is.. you know who.. lalala |
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| Look for that writing above us for Halal restaurant! Now he became masculine, haha! Enough Ain enough. |
And so after that we end our night by going to the underground shops, I mean these shops have license of course but were built underground to preserve the cleanliness and tidiness of Laoyang town. It used to be above the ground but China's government had moved them not so long ago.
Luoyang was such a nice place to go where local there were friendly and I noticed that they were very fashionable, love it! Foods were delicious, just make sure you choose the right one and no problem in finding Halal food. Other than that, stuffs like clothes and bags here were cheaper than in Xi'an but one small tiny problem either its Xi'an or Luoyang, their shops and shopping malls closed as early as 9.30 pm. I wish they had a downtown like in Malaysia where you can shop at 3 am in the morning!
Anyway, with this it is the end of day 3 and up next is day 4. We visited the first in number among all other grottoes in China.
Until then, Assalamualaikum!
Happy weekend!
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