Shaolin Temple

Today we were able to Skype with our families and see Meighan!  Meighan couldn't see us on the first call and we couldn't see her on the second call but we did get her to smile for us on the first call and we got to hear her wonderful laugh on the second call.


We took the iPad back up to our room and grabbed our backpack and went back down to the lobby to meet Echo.  She said it would be about a two hour drive to the Shaolin Temple.  It was colder today with a forecast of rain and snow.  With these temps, I don't think it's going to rain!  The Shaolin Temple is southwest of Zhengzhou in some mountains.  Guess what?  It was REALLY COLD up there!  We just can't win!


We arrived at the Shaolin Temple area in Dengfeng County at about 10:45.  As we drove through the town Echo told us that this is THE place where people come to learn Kung Fu and all martial arts.  There are many martial arts institutes here and as we drove she pointed out several.  There's one every several blocks for a while.  There's even one specifically for Muslims.


Mr. Liu dropped us off at the entrance.  We walked in and Echo went to buy tickets while we took some pictures.  She found out that the morning Kung Fu show was at 11:30 so we went straight there first.  Sitting doing nothing for 40 or so minutes didn't help our heat deprivation.  The show was good, though!


After the show we walked to the temple itself.  The temple consists of 7 buildings called palaces.  Some of the first palaces were destroyed by fire many years ago and have been rebuilt.  There's a place at just about every palace where people can buy incense and light it and say prayers.  I'm not a great fan of the scent of incense.


After the temple we came out to the Pagoda Forest.  This is where all of the high ranking monks are buried.  How high they ranked and what they did for the temple determined the height and design of their pagoda.   I will post pictures when we get home.  It's really quite interesting.


When we finished at the Pagoda Forest, Echo said that was pretty much all there was to see here so we started walking back to the van.  On the way we stopped and bought some noodles (like Ramen Noodles) and some "vegetarian biscuits" which is a specialty of this area.  Echo got hot water and made our noodles for us which we shared (it had a fork inside which was folded and we had to unfold and lock in place).  Then she got her own.  The vegetarian biscuits were quite good.  We decided we wanted more.  Echo said they sell them at Walmart cheaper.


We were sitting at a table with other people and Echo was visiting with them.  She said they were a group that met over the internet and decided to meet in person.  They shared their snacks with us.  Echo told them that we were there to adopt a son and they thought that was neat.  They were also talking about volunteering in an orphanage.  They took our pictures with a couple of them--nothing new to us--and I took a picture of all of them.  Very friendly people.


We went on our way back to the van.  We stopped and bought a book of postcards with pictures of the temple area.


We drove back to Zhengzhou and we requested to be dropped off at Pizza Hut and then we'd go to Walmart and walk back.  That way we didn't have to walk both directions.  Our legs and bodies are tired of walking.  We won't be walking so much the next couple of days.


Echo helped us order at Pizza Hut.  We decided on a Hawaiian pan pizza.  She asked if we wanted anything else.  Bread sticks sounded good but they didn't have those.  We looked at the appetizers and I saw "Western Zesty Waffle Crispers."  Can you guess what those are?  They are aka waffle fries. I still like the name!  "Western Zesty Waffle Crispers!"  LOL!


After supper we walked to Walmart and got some apple juice, some hard caramel candy that I have fallen in love with and all 4 varieties of the vegetarian biscuits.  They were only a little cheaper at Walmart.  The 4 varieties are sesame, almond, walnut and peanut.  We've had the sesame and really like them.


We got back to the hotel and wrote this post.  We meet Le An tomorrow at 10:00 am (8:00 pm Sunday Nebraska time)!