It was a really amazing trip and I'm very glad I went despite having a few last minute reservations about the cost/fun ratio. It cost me about 1000Rmb but I think it was worth it just to get a taste of life outside of Shanghai. I mean why bother coming to China if you don't venture out into the actual country. I really don't see the point, but anyway.
So we started on friday after work. We booked the train for 5.40pm and it was easy to sort out because the Shanghai terminal has an english speaking booth. The 13 hour train journey loomed over us like a dagger, but moral was suprisingly high! 6 volunteers went on the trip. It actually ended up being the perfect amount because there are 6 beds to a compartment.
Ok lets keep going, well the trip there was quite uneventful to be honest. Chocolate sandwiches were probably the most funny thing as seen in picture 4, and a small toddler I made friends with...
The next day at around 8am we arrived in Zhengzhou. I actually slept quite well, the rocking motion of the train acted sort of like some sort of cradle and was relaxing in a strange way. The city is much less developed than Shanghai and was of little real intrest. When we arrived we needed to buy train tickets to return to Shanghai. As there was no English speaking booth I had to try and use my mandarin to get us our tickets. I was fine at saying we wanted to go to Shanghai etc but as soon as they tryed to tell us that we couldn't all sleep in the same compartment I got very confused. Luckly it was fairly easy to sort out as we phoned Jessie to translate for us!
We also needed to buy bus tickets to get from the city to the temples, and I am still quite uncertain of whether we got ripped off or not, but somehow we ended up paying twice for the bus. then again for the temple. hmmm. Well either way I really enjoyed the tour. The bus took us to 3 different temples. The first one was very small and obviously wasn't used by monks anymore but only for money making by tour guides. I felt slighly cheated when we arrived there because I felt like the 15 hours(including bus) of travelling didn't seem to quite deserve this but it got better...
Next to temple number 2. Don't ask me the names, Appart from the actual Shaolin temple I didn't really understand where we were going...
and just to prove they still exist...
Next stop (after lunch) was the Shaolin Scenic Spot. Sadly we didn't see it all. I'd have loved to spend more time there but when we got there it was about 1.30 and we had to leave at 4.00 to get back in time for our train. But it was still amazing. Monks are really money grabbing though. I mean Jesus Christ! I guess it's just the chinese culture but there was little you could do without paying. The first thing you see as you get to the first temple type thing is a large bell and someone next to it who asks you if you want to ring it. My friend rang the bell and as soon as he did he was asked for money because he rang the bell! Nice start.
The first thing we did really was watch the kung fu show. It was amazing! It made me want to go and do some Karate even more. Urghhh. But before the show 5 monks stood on stage to pose for a picture you could be in (which cost 20rmb). I did get one, but I don't like it too much. I wasn't really too sure what was going on so I didn't pose very well haha...
I don't have it on my camera so that is one you'll have to see when I get home.
Then they allowed three volunteers from the audience to join the stage to perform kata (forms) with the monks and two of my friends were chosen!
Next we looked around one of the temples. There were so many monks around you could almost believe it was 500 years ago or whatevrr/
I think that pretty much sums it all up as much as one can in a blog post. The train journey back was quite entertaining I though. I had a interesting conversation using just the mandarin I knew with some people who couldn't speak any english. I was actually really fun! Later two younger chinese guys came along who could kind of string together some semi understandable english so me, two other volunteers and 5 or 6 chinese guys had a good conversation. It was really fun, and actually helped my mandarin. I was able to see if they understood what I was saying etc.Good night for now,
Wan shang hao way sian zai ( maybe/maybe not right...)
Ben
fantastic we love the picture of you in the gateway doing your karate kata
HS+GP