Shaolin Temple is famous for king fu and medicine.

Kids start at 6, with 90% being Chinese. Also, around 90% are boys.

7K AUD a year is the fee to go to the school here. It’s not cheap. They are there from 7:20 am to 6pm. Domenic has a 12 year old son there, so he knows a lot about it.

Tang dynasty started this. 618 – 907.

When the civil war started, the Tung leader fled to the Shaolin Temple, which only had 100 monks. They went out and defeated the 10,000 strong army.

Two years later, the Tung guy took the throne and raised the temple high. They went from 100 to 1,000 monks. 

Lots of monks went there to be fed, and to learn self defence.

If you wanted to learn kung fu, you had to spend a year hauling water up the mountain to the temple.

At times, their numbers swelled to 3,000, but this made the government nervous, as the monks were such good fighters. The numbers were eventually capped at 500.

1,400 years ago, the city had 1 million people.  80,000 people were from other places, such as Korea , Iran and Russia.

Kung fu has 10 different parts, with the fighting being only one part. Tai Chi is another part.

Before 2020, the birth rate was 20 million a year. 

Now, it’s around 10 million a year.

It’s very expensive to get married here in China.

In 1970, to get married, people needed a Sewing machine to make clothes, a Phoenix brand bicycle, and a watch.

1980, they needed a fridge, TV (programs were only from 7 -9),and washing machine.

1990, they needed air conditioner, a colour tv, video recorder.

2000, it was a computer, a car and an apartment. “If you have a house, the lady will marry you.”

Because of this, housing prices have shot up.

2010- credit card and BMW = Be My Wife or Bring My Wallet!

Cheaper BMWs are made here in Beijing. MGs are now made in China too. A guy on our tour loves his.

6 cities are built around making iPhones. There are 300,000 people in this city who work for Apple. Our guide was laughing about Trump’s tariffs, saying that the Americans can’t pay so much extra.

To my chagrin, Domenic said that it costs $200 to make my phone. I paid $1,500!

“You very rich lady to pay that!” He said.

“I was, until I bought this!” I replied.

8 months salary pays for the average iPhone Max. Crazy. “But some Chinese ladies like to do this.”

“How much is petrol here?” someone asked.

“Bloody expensive!” he replied. The ‘bloody’ was in an Australian accent. It turns out that it’s the same as Australia, but as Lucas said, we earn 4 times as much as the average Chinese, so petrol is hugely expensive for them.

10,000 students are here. People send their less academically gifted sons. When they graduate, they tend to work in security as bodyguards.

Zen Buddhism is from here.

The lion means power.

The Gate is 300 years old. By the way, I’m copying from my notes. There may be speeling nistakes.

Temple 1,500 years old. 

Ginkgo tree is the same age as the temple.

See the holes in the trunk? They are from the kung fu students practicing jabbing their fingers to be strong enough to break through tiles, etc.

Tortoise is 1,400 years old. The writing is Chinese cursive and the vast majority of Chinese people can’t read it any more. These tortoise statues were dotted all over the place. Their symbolic meaning is longevity.

The statue to the right of the Buddha is of the guy who brought Buddhism back to this area.

This is very much a working monastery. This building with the reclining Buddha is a study hall.

They cook in these big pots, while students are suspended above, learning how to kick and somersault in mid air. I imagine the motivation would be high.

Once Domenic had shown us the first 3 levels of buildings, we were given 7 minutes to explore. The pace on this trip is frenetic. Blogless Sandy elected to whip up and see the last building. There were a lot of steps. I chose to amble back down and see what I could see.

On top of a roof.

After this, we walked to see the monks’ graveyard. It was a hot day, but even so, I was regretting wearing my sandals. My feet weren’t getting as much support as they clearly needed.

The graveyard here has more than 200 markers for monks from level one to level seven. The higher the tomb,  the higher the level the monk achieved.

Once we’d taken our photos, we kept walking. This part of the tour wasn’t on the itinerary. Someone had asked Domenic if we could go on the chairlift to the top of the mountain. For an extra $25 AUD each, we could. Blogless Sandy and I have agreed that we’ll sign up for everything, so we handed over a 100 yuan note each to Domenic.

No one realised just how much walking was involved to get to the place where the chairlift was. It was “only” 900 metres, but it was uphill. I tell you, this is yet another example of why I’m travelling so much while I’m reasonably nimble. Some of the older and fatter people in the group were having trouble, but we all made it in the end.

The views from the cable car were amazing.

Very grand and spectacular.

We got out and wandered around the top. I was assuming that the views of the mountains and valleys were the drawcard. 

But then I got the best surprise I’ve had for a long while…

Zoom in to the cliff. 

See the village and temple there? How exquisite!

Imagine living way up there? What would it be like?

There was a path leading all the way up to the village. We only had half an hour before we had to leave, but we decided to walk as far as we could before we had to turn back.

It was still high 30’s, so the shade and the breeze were very welcome. Half way along, there was a clump of eateries, a massage place and a stall where a guy was selling etchings of the temple carved onto grains of rice. Free enterprise is alive and well here.

Here’s one that Sandy took, which shows just how the path was clinging to the cliff. For someone who’s leery of heights, she did remarkably well.

There came a point where we were right near the end of the cliff, but time was ticking. We took some photos, then headed back.

I’ll never forget the sight of the buildings perched on the edge of the cliff, with the sheer rock plunging down to the valley below. How beautiful and isolated it was. 

I’m so glad I didn’t know about it beforehand. It was the most wonderful surprise.

Dad Joke of the Day: