Luoyang, China Day 4 (Part 1 - Longmen Grottoes)

Assalamualaikum w.b.t!

Alhamdulillah for yet another day.

Previously we went to see the Shaolin Temple and Forest of Pagoda as in my last post Dengfeng, China Day 3 Part 1 and Part 2. 

Today I am continuing with our visit to Longmen Grottoes, one of the three famous treasure houses of stone sculpture in China. It ranks first in number among all other grottoes in China, built over a period of 400 years, storing more than 2000 sculptures.

Longmen Grottoes is (other than Shaolin monastery) most suitable place to visit for those who interested to know more on Buddhism. Here, you will be able to witness the Buddhist sculptures craved by monks who devoted their lives for this religion hundreds of years ago. Therefore, I didn't take much photos of the Buddha's sculptures and focus more on the scenery there.

24th Oct 2014 (Day 4)

As always at 8.30 am after we had our breakfast, we begin the tour to the grottoes and it took us 30 - 40 minutes to get there from our hotel. From parking lot to main entrance is about 5 - 10 minutes walked while the whole tour was estimated around 2 hours. Did I mentioned Chinese here love walking? Yup I did. Well anyway, along the path to main entrance you can snap pictures of colorful flowers by the river and the bridge across Yi River.

Begin from here and further ahead to the entrance.  

Loving the view!

The main entrance to the Longmen Grottoes, about time the maple leaves changing colors.
Loving the autumn!

The grottoes were along the Yi River where grottoes on the right and river on the left. This was really nice especially in the morning with such a nice weather to walk. 

The first caves of sculptures seen on right and as further we went, the caves increased and the largest sculptures were at the center. Walk til you seen it all!

These sculptures used to be in colors but over the time colors on these lime stone sculptures diminished due to weather factor. Other than that, most of the sculptures are head-less because the head were destroyed by those who opposed Buddhism.

Most of it were at higher level so stairs were built later for convenient of visitors.
Imagine how did the monks went so up high and craved all that! 

Lots of caves to see and stairs to climb!

We gave up from the start, no climbing except for the largest sculptures and the stairs were like those in Batu Caves, Malaysia. (I'll put up the photos of these stairs later)

Not sure what it says but at this store is where we redeemed a postcard jut by showing our entrance ticket.
Only one postcard per ticket and need to claimed it ourselves. 

If you decided not to climb, just stay by the river and chill out.

After almost an hour and a half about 11.20 am, we moved to the other side by crossing the Yi River. Not using the earlier bridge but the second one and some of us did it by cycling, bicycle rental provided there, while others and that was me, just walked and enjoyed it. 

The bicycles were either 2 or 3 people.
And oh ya! This is Steven, agency's tour guide, and me. I kept on talking about Mr Leo that I forgot about Steven lol. He was very nice and helpful! Most of the time he became our translator and did most of the bargains!
And I needed the bicycle for posing purpose only haha  

Can you see a bridge there? Hardly isn't it.
That was where main entrance situated, and yup, we did walk thaaaat far!

From across the river, you'll be able to see the entire view of the grottoes.

Some guide on Yi River.

To get back to the main entrance was either turned back to the same path we took earlier (same view, what a waste! Don't do that) or crossed the second bridge and make a big u-turn back (with wonderful view awaited!) but not to worry as there was buggy ride waited for us there.

The buggy ride we took was not part of the package but it cost only 10 Yuan.

The ride brought us to the Pedestrians Street - Street for shopping, yeay!

Most of the things here were the crafts like key-chain, embroidery clothes, scarfs. 

And as always, there were fruits and nuts.

As well as pearls!  

In 1970, china started producing freshwater pearls in mussels, and today 99% of freshwater pearls come from China. Cultured pearl is grown by inserting a small piece of oyster tissue into the mollusk. The shell returned to the water, turned regularly and harvested. Oyster produce one pearl, while mussel can produce as many as 60 pearls of different shapes and colours.

Most of the shop dealers here were very nice and we did bargained for the goods but if you want to do so and really get a good bargain, buy more and keep insisting!

So that is it for now.
I'll continue on next post!
Till then, Assalamualaikum!

Dengfeng, China Day 3 (Part 2 - Forest of Pagoda)

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! 

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.

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.   

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!

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!

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!

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.

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.

You can actually go further up and explore this huge monastery and spend at least days to finish touring but unfortunately for us, there ain't enough time. But the good news was no more walking! Yeay!

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.

The ride of miracle! Haha!

While queuing for buggy, I saw these lovely ladies.
It was like watching Mandarin series when I was at secondary school, simply authentic!  

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.

This restaurant makes me felt as if I'm in another era of Chinese's Dynasty, mesmerizing! 

You can choose to dine indoor or outdoor and enjoy the peaceful ambiance.

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!

This uncle selling varies of nuts like almonds, walnuts and peanuts as well as fresh tamarinds.

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.

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

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!

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!