Too many trains and some cool monks.

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When i left Chengdu I had a 24 hour train ride north to Zhengzhou (pronounced Chong-choo) in the Henan Province, which really drained me, and this, with the added "bonus" of my hostel reservation falling through when i eventually reached this city, gave me my first crisis of confidence on my trip so far. I managed to get through it however and after a nights sleep i moved to the nearby town of Luoyang, which, although much smaller, was more chilled out than the hectic and poluted Zhengzhou. There, once in my hostel, i met a Chinese guy named Tony who i hung out with. After a couple of days of chilling out we went to the Shaolin Temple at Song Shan, near Luoyang. It was at this historic temple that Kung-Fu began, originally due to the disciples of a meditating Buddhist who imitated the movements and positions of various wild animals. This has developed ove hundreds of year into 72 forms of Kung-Fu as we know it, and watching the resident Shaolin trainees in action was very very impressive. Plenty of breaking bamboo and steel plates was done by these guys, some as young as 5 or 6 years old. The area is a complex of various temples and even a medicinal area, and i even had a chat with a working Buddhist monk there. He had just completed course of Chinese Philosophy at the University of Manchester, so was obviously very keen to speak to an english-man.
Wednesday morning i arose early to catch a 3.45 am train to Beijing, however in a Chinese rarity, the train was incredibly late, not leaving until 5am. Ive been in Beijing now for 24 hours, and again im enjoying it. As its May-day today im going to visit Tiannamen Square, as they usually have events going on there on this national holiday, and hopefully i will hook up with some english teachers that i have met later.
i suspect i wont be blogging again for a few days, by which time i will have arrived in India, for my 2 months of sun there!!

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