China - Kaifeng

---

After seven weeks in China, my VISA had all but expired, so I head for a small city called Kaifeng, a four hour bus-ride from Luoyang, in hopes of getting an extension.

Unfortunately, because of the Olympics, 2008 is China's 'Special Year' and VISAs are hard to come by. In Kaifeng they could only give me a 10 day extension from that day - not much point when I still had 13 days left on the current one.

I book a train ticket to Nanjing, the old Capital of China, but it leaves me two days to kill in Kaifeng.

I visit the Da Xianguo Si - the Prime Minister's Temple, and see an amazing gold-plated carved Buddha, which took 58 years to carve and was made from a solitary tree. It has 4 faces and 1048 arms! At 7m tall, it's nowhere near the biggest I've seen, but it's one of the most impressive.

---

Photos

1048 armed Buddha
Carved from 1 tree and then gold-leaved, it took 58 years to complete

1048 armed Buddha
Detail

Gardens
Very pretty

Gardens
Nice flowers too

Gardens
Not sure what he's doing?