Linying Temple and Steven

I went to Linying temple, which is a fully functional budhist temple in the hills around Hangzhou. Roberto told me that if there was one thing to see in Hangzhou, then this was it. I think I would agree. It was really a pretty amazing place.



In the cliffs walking up the temple (which of course they charged you money to do, then an additional charge to get in) they have hundreds of different carvings. Some of the carvings were even in caves that were nearly pitch black. These were pretty big also, approximately the size of a person or larger. Carved into stone fool!!!


The temple itself...well, it was pretty amazing, however, they request that you dont take pictures while in the buildings, and the last thing that I want to to is have a budhist monk use the touch of death on me, so I didnt really take any pictures. Sorry. However, I did shoot some through the doors...no shooting pictures IN the buildings right? They really did have real legitimate monks walking around the place too in the outfits that I see in kung fu movies.


Here is a picture of this hall where they had approximately 500 trippy interpretations of budha carved larger than life out of bronze. Some ranged from simply playing instruments, to thinking, to tearing open their chest to allow alittle budha to pop out. One budha had evil heads wispering in his ears. This was very very interesting, I may have enjoyed this the most. 500 unique bronze statues fool!!!

The main hall had a huge budha that was like ...over 20 meters tall...it was big. The vase in the picture is taller than Darrow (6'4"), so that can give you some perspective.

Here is Maddy, myself and Sabina.
Thats a mini budha in the background, not the Big Guy previously shown.

Ok, second experience worth noting is that I finally met my friend Steven who I used to correspond with on a daily basis when I worked at Dioptics. He has been a huge help to me, contacting classmates and friends who in turn have extended themselves to help me find my way through china. He came up on a 11 hour bus ride to visit me and one of his other classmates in Hangzou.

Here is Steven.

Amazing story really, he grew up until the age of 12 in a town with no running water and no electricity. I think this may be linked to his comfort with medium sized bugs. Anyways, now he is working for a medium sized american company, and doing quite well for himself in China...actually really well in my opinion. He has got the "buying bug" though....I joked with him that he buys everything, but he is married and has a son, so I guess he has people to buy for. We were out and among other things, he bought his wife a bracelet. Right after he bought it, she happened to call him on the phone. He was all, "I bought you a bracelet!" and she was all, "Dont waste money." Then Steven told me that its funny because if you dont buy them anything, then they get mad at you, but when you do buy them something, then they get mad at you. Some things are universal no matter where you are at eh?


So we went out and ate food with one of his old classmates Hong Xia (or Grace if you have an offensively bad comprehension of Chinese names like I do). She was so nice, and so small. She insisted on paying for lunch (or in China they call it dinner...I dont know). I know what you are thinking, "well what do they call dinner then" the answer of course is "Wan fan" duh. One of the 8 dishes that Grace ordered (for 3 people to eat) was the famous West Lake soup, named after the famous West Lake of Hangzhou (city I'm in). It was actually really good so the story checks out. Steven and Grace kept paying for everything. I would try to pay, and then Steven would be all, "Hey guy, this is China...this is how we do it"

This is Grace

We revisited the Leifeng Pagoda because Steven had not been there, but this time we were able to go to the second floor, which I previously thought you could not get to. Again, the wood carvings were amazing, it tells a story about a girl who was a snake turned human, and fell in love with a guy and had a son. Then, the Man said snakes can't marry humans, so he locked her in the Leifeng Pagoda. Her lover fought hard to free her, but failed. Then I think some time later her son was able to free her. Ah, alas, another beautiful story that I have butchered. Did I already tell you this story? Oh well, more pictures:

Need I remind you that these are wood fool?!

I will keep this next part short, but Steven had been in contact with a lady who he met on the internet, and she and her friend met up with Steven and I on Sunday. Miss Chen and Miss Jin. Miss Chen owns a metal casting factory, and Miss Jin owned a beauty shop. Together they own a tea shop. Im pretty sure they are loaded. They bought me and Steven bus tickets out to this bamboo park, as well as multiple meals. After we got back from the bamboo park, they took us in their private car back to that water city that I previously mentioned. Here is a picture of us at a nice dinner.


Miss Chen's daughter Ashley came to the water city with us. She is a really really cute kid and spoke alittle english, but without an accent. It was really interesting. Actually, I have found that there are ALOT of cute asian kids here, does anyone want one? Im sure I could find one for you.

On the way to the water city, we cruised in style with techno music blaring out the speakers. I was riding in a truely legit rice rocket because, well:

1. I was the only one wearing a seat belt
2. People were speaking in Chinese
3. There were no concrete traffic rules. but they probably drive more carefully than people in the States..but whatever.
   
4. I was in China fool!

Fyi, I just ate tomato flavored potato chips with chopsticks. I have come to the conclusion that chopsticks are a superior eating utensil. They are like using your thumb and forefinger to pick stuff up and move aside that which you dont want, but your hands can stay clean (which is a challenge here...few bathrooms have soap). Plus they give you the reach advantage. Chopsticks till I die fool!!!

Soon to follow, a couple of scenic pictures of Hangzhou, and a cute asian kid that reminds me of Charlie Brown.