Blogs from Song Shan, Henan, China, Asia

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Asia » China » Henan » Song Shan September 20th 2013

Ky and I reinforce our madness and go for a run in the morning. We’d gotten a map of the downtown area, conveniently labelled in Chinese, and figured if we went down this road for 5 blocks we’d end up at the Luo River, which has a 13km long park along its northern side. Visibility is still ~1km. Heading down the side of the street, alternating between path and road, dodging dog poo, cyclists and parked cars, we end up in a completely different street, no where near the river. But we figure it out by matching symbols on the street signs with the map, and run up a block and back. On the return leg we run through a long park with loads of people doing tai chi. Tai chi to music, with swords, fans, ... read more
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Asia » China » Henan » Song Shan October 6th 2010

Today we drove to Song Shan mountain which is where, among other things there is the famous Shaolin Temple. I think this is a or the birth place of Kung Fu but I'm not sure. This site is highly commercialised by Chinese standards but it is so touristy that it is hard to find out what the real story here is. There are certainly many schools around the area where parents send their children to study with Kung Fu as extra classes. There are a whole heap of temples and mini pagodas (that were destroyed in the cultural revolotion, and rebuilt recently) and stack of people selling crap ! Don't get me wrong it was interesting but it kind of felt Disney-fied. There was a really cool Pagoda that is the oldest in China, but the ... read more
jack pole dancing

Asia » China » Henan » Song Shan September 24th 2010

Greetings one and all, So yesterday we went to the Shaolin Temple. Now the day didn't quite go as I had planned, we ended up on a tour of other scenic spots around the Shaolin Temple and didn't arrive there until 3 o'clock in the afternoon, bearing in mind that we left home at around 7.30 am and the temple is only 80 kms away. We had to change buses 3 times. I wanted to visit the pagoda forest and go up into the mountains but unfortunatly due to lack of time, the last bus leaves Shaolin at 6.00 pm, we only got to see the temple itself oh and the obligitory kung-fu show. The temple itself is small and all fairly new. The temple itself was burned down in 1923 and most of the halls ... read more
mount songshan scenic area (23)
mount songshan scenic area (1)
mount songshan scenic area

Asia » China » Henan » Song Shan October 24th 2009

SUN 11 OCT 2009 Just to put all your minds at ease, I'll start by confirming that Paul was much better by the morning and just woke with a headache, probably down to dehydration so he will definitely be back to his usual mischievous ways in no time!! AND THEN THERE WERE FOUR! Leaving Stuart and Jamie behind till South East Asia; Derek, Leanne, Paul and I donned our packs and started the long trudge to the station without so much as a morsel to eat as breakie was not served at the hostel till aft 7.30am. By the time we cleared security the train was boarding so we rushed through. Now up to this point every train we had taken had been a night train and a soft sleeper at that (the most expensive but ... read more
Shaolin Monk
Derek, Paul, Leanne & I at Shaolin temple
Budda in temple gardens

Asia » China » Henan » Song Shan May 10th 2008

The famous Shaolin temple, located in the Henan province, one of the most populous provinces in China, there is a Chinese saying: "all the style of the Kong Fu had the origin from Shaolin", in fact the Shaolin Kong Fu is very famous, the Shaolin temple always had the image from my mind, a peaceful place, the monks training, old buildings, but it is not like that now, the Shaolin temple is extremely commercial now, it is like a big entertainment park, the place I could find the feeling of old Shaolin is the "the forest of the pagodas", there is the to keep the elevated monks after the death. The Longmen cave, it is one of three main stone cave in China, these caves have the sculptures and paintings about the Buddhism, it is quite ... read more
Buddha and monk
Lotus
Chinese instrument

Asia » China » Henan » Song Shan February 11th 2006

Arduously rising at dawn we caught the Kung Fu spectacle given by the acolytes at the Song Shan Shaoling Temple, the birthplace of Kung Fu. It was awesome, these guys moved faster than anyone ive seen (much to fast to get a decent photo) and showed off stunts of strength and speed like piercing a glass sheet with a needle, breaking metal bars on foreheads, and generally anything that gave the impression that they could kick anybody's ass at will. The place itself was set amongst the impressive Song Shan mountain range which according to the Daoists is the centre of the World. Not far from here we went to see the Longmen Caves; a ravine side grotto of over two kilometres of continous buddhist sculpture dating from between 200-400 AD. Absolutely every available space has ... read more
Me at the Shaolin Temple: home of Kung Fu
Kate struts her stuff
Havent lost those moves...

Asia » China » Henan » Song Shan February 10th 2006

Shaolin Temple - 10.02.06 Shaolin Si is a Buddist temple in the area of the Song Shan mountain range. It is famous for being the place where Kung Fu was invented so we had to make a brief stop here on our way through to Xi'an. Without going into any boring details it was a bit of a drama to get there/get in (partly but not entirely our own fault) but in the end it was worth all the hassle. The temple itself is a fairly standard one as buddist temples go (we have seen many, many temples now!) and there is a pagoda forest which we wandered around for a while but the highlight of the visit was definitely the Kung Fu show put on by students of the academy. Children as young as eight ... read more
The Academy
Kung Fu with sticks
Kung Fu poses




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