Song Shan: Birthplace of Kung Fu, and Longmen Caves

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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 been inscribed upon and all caves filled; the amount of work involved really is unimaginable, these guys must have really like buddha!

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