 | Hangzhou General Tips | Tips 1 - 10 of 96 |  |
Popular General Tips | Other General Tips Tips | All Tips (96) Along the way to the Lingyin Si temple complex, you will pass many stone sculptures carved right into the rocky side of the nearby hills such as the jubilant Buddha that you see in the photo here... There are dozens of these types of sculptures, and a series of elaborate pathways connects them together... Leave a Comment
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Another golden statue inside the giant swastika-shaped building, this one showing a man with a dragon... The Chinese refer to the swastika as wan zi... The symbol was also used by the ancient Mesopotamians, as well as the ancient Mayans... Aboriginal Brazilian women displayed it on their genital shields and Trojan goddess figurines show the symbol displayed on the vulva... Leave a Comment
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Becky and I had a delicious dinner at the revolving restaurant at the top of the Friendship Hotel in downtown Hangzhou... This restaurant has a combination of Asian and Western cuisines available on the menu, and most surprising of all, they served us a big pitcher of tangy, very tasty SANGRIA!! Leave a Comment
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Couldn't make out the bats in the previous photo of me at West Lake...? Here is a close-up version, zeroing in on one of the bats...! These notorious winged mammals are nocturnal and come out at night to hunt for various insects that make up their diet... Did you know that bats are the only mammals that can fly...? And of course, everyone knows that bats use sonar and echolocation in order to fly at night... In China, bats are considered lucky... Leave a Comment
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Inside a gigantic swastika-shaped building at Lingyin Si, there reside many golden sculptures like the one you see here, which shows a man holding a lotus flower... Notice the woodwork of the window also echoes the swastika motif... In Buddhism, the swastika can represent resignation and has connotations of good fortune... Leave a Comment
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Inside a large cave near the entrance to Lingyin Si, you'll find this statue of the 7th century Tang Dynasty Buddhist pilgrim, Hsuan Tsang, from the great Chinese epic "Journey to the West"... In the story, Hsuan Tsang, joined by the famous Monkey King, and other characters, sets forth on a journey to the wild, barbaric lands of Western China and India, in search of sutras... The real life Hsuan Tsang was originally from Hangzhou... Leave a Comment
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Lingyin Si, sometimes translated as "temple of the soul's retreat", was originally built in the year 326 A.D.... This is a HUGE Buddhist temple complex, probably the biggest I've ever seen, apart from the great Javanese wonder of Borobodur itself...! Pictured here is Lingyin Si's largest Buddha statue, a 20 meter high camphor wood colossus! Leave a Comment
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Shown here, one of the important Buddha statues at Lingyin Si, bearing a bright gold swastika on his chest... Notice carefully that this is the right-handed swastika, the most ancient form of the symbol, which has been used extensively in Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism for millenia. Don't confuse this with the left-handed swastika that was more recently adopted by the Nazis... Leave a Comment
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Becky took this photo of me standing alongside West Lake at night... If you click on this photo and look very carefully, you might be able to spot one or two bats swooping around above my head...! Haha! Bats live around the area of West Lake and can sometimes be seen flying about the area... But they were no trouble, and actually rather amusing...! Leave a Comment
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Pictured here, one of the architectural features of the temple complex, in the classic Qing Dynasty aesthetic... These temples are simply glorious... It's really awe-inspiring to walk through this complex and explore all of the giant buildings... The Qing Dyansty emperor Kangxi once called it the "cloud forest Buddhist temple"... Leave a Comment
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on September 22, 2003
