01-03-2012, 03:17 PM
Since, I had to be at the Temple by 7:30, I wasn’t going to get to eat breakfast at the hotel. No purple rice soup and buns for Greg. I stuffed my face with the buns and rice crackers I had lying around the room.
As is the case on this trip, I awoke at 3 and couldn’t return to sleep. One night, I snapped awake, looked at my watch and determined it was 4:30. I got up, showered and shaved and then started Skype to talk to Cindi. She wanted to know why I was up at 1:30 local time. No, it was 4:30 here. But when I looked at my computer clock it confirmed what Cindi said. Later when I checked my watch, it still said 4:30. When I was setting the alarm to make sure I woke up at the right time, I didn’t depress the button, so it had just stayed at 4:30.
The fog wasn’t quite as thick this morning when I arrived at the arrival area for Shaolin. But the wind still blew nice and coldly. I was a couple minutes early, so I wandered around looking at the closed stores, rattling the handle of the locked bathrooms. 7:30 rolled around with no sign of Sal.
He eventually rolled up at ten to eight.
The only people in front of the dragon gate when we arrived were the guards, ticket takers and monks. During the half mile walk from the gate to the temple, I was introduced to Philip, the fourth member of Sal’s quartet. He was planning to stay inside the temple. He also wanted to spend the night in one of the local caves. Feeling how cold it was, I didn’t think spending the night in a rock cave was not all that appealing.
To the amusement of all, I stripped off my outer layers, so I could do another self-portrait. This time I was wearing my Master Tu school t-shirt. Two visiting monks asked me to take their pictures. One of the guys was huge. He had studied at the Temple but had since left. Sal seemed to think the one monk had appeared in KFM. The beads on his bracelet were the size of golf balls.
Then I video taped Sal and the girls doing forms and weapons sets in front of the dragon gate. Sal’s stuff looked pretty good and so did Patty’s . But I think Natasha was too new to the routines because she made mistakes.
Tourists with their guides started to show up at this time. But they were very nice about allowing us to film. None of them walked into the shots to get their pictures taken. They even applauded the routines. The monks looked on amused.
The monks at the gate stopped me from bringing the big camera into the temple. At first they wanted to confiscate it completely, but settled on taking just the battery. Naturally, I had an extra battery in my backpack. But I abided by the wishes of the monk guards and elected not to use it.
Being honorable, was a poor decision, because I wasn’t in the temple more than ten minutes before I noticed the buttons on the back of the still camera weren’t working. I couldn’t get the preview to work. I couldn’t record video. Nothing. The only thing that might have been working was the picture taking part of the camera. I couldn’t be sure because the photo preview button wasn’t working. All I knew was when I clicked the shutter, the number of pictures left to take number on the screen counted down.
Patty and Sal’s cameras continued to work so I helped shoot with those. Admirers followed us and wanted to take pictures with the martial artists. The head of the warrior monks was there and he reluctantly took pictures with us, too.
One of the monks who trained with Sal at his Sifu’s school met up with us. He offered Sal and company critiques about their performances. We then followed him to the Zen tea shop next door to the main temple.
On the way out, my battery was returned.
The monk running the tea shop joined us and treated us to free tea. I tried to use the warmth of the tea to thaw my frozen camera. At least I hope it was frozen. I considered this might be a holdover from the camera’s crash to the ground at Taguo.
We heard music coming from the courtyard behind the tea shop. Brother monk said a performance was starting. The group immediately raced over there, using the seniority of the Brother Monk to get us beyond the guards. I was now back in the temple with the big camera and it’s battery.
Wooden benches had been set up close to a small stage in front of a tower. Audience members already filled some of the seats, but there was still plenty of room for us in this intimate setting. You could see the monks warming up to the side. I noticed one of the monks warming up with a Monk’s spade. I had read about this form in KFM and couldn’t wait to film it. At least I think it was the Monk’s spade.
The demonstration seemed to be pretty standard fare with a few exceptions. The group did an abbreviated Yi Jin Jing. A young boy came out and did some Tongzigong. He had a few moves I didn’t recognize and plenty that I did. There were some forms. There was some weapons including the Spade, which seemed very short. The monk also seemed a little blasé about doing it.
They did the nail through glass. One monk did the iron head demo by breaking a bar over his head. Then another young boy came out to do head rolls and he was fantastic. The best thing he did was to stand up on one leg and kick the other leg into a hold position behind his head. He didn’t pull it up there, he kicked it there. I was thankful I had the camera rolling.
They also did a fight set between staff and sword that was very good. Really fast. The blows and blocks were tight to the body. I should be filming more of that.
By this point, the back of my camera had thawed, so I could actually check that my camera was indeed working. All the stills I had been shooting were in the camera. Plus, I got to take stills of the demo. I also took photos of the people in the audience taking photos of me.
Brother Monk went with us to the pagoda forest. We found a spot in the back near some of the oldest pagodas and the unknown pagoda which celebrates all monks not just the famous abbots.
It was a good spot. Few tourists interrupted us by walking into the shots. Most just wanted to see what we were doing. The sun shined to help light the scene.
Patty discovered that she had left her shoes behind. We couldn’t film the three of them doing routines as Natasha and Patty had to share shoes. Some of the footage looked great, but again there was a glaring weakness. Brother monk offered tips on better routines.
Brother monk offered to take us to lunch at a local restaurant. I was a bit confused, because the only restaurant I had seen was the tea garden.
During the course of my trip, I had yet to stop for lunch. There wasn’t enough light in the day for me to take breaks. I was on vacation to see things. I could always eat when I got back to the United States.
However I bowed to the groups wishes and followed them to lunch.
A van picked us up next to the 500 Buddha hall across the bridge from the Dragon Gate. A road led up into the hills that I hadn’t noticed before. Up in this little canyon, high above the temple, were dozens of boxy houses and shops.
We stopped at this little restaurant. The Women in charge led us into a dingy poorly lit room. The table was covered with a thin plastic sheet. She gave us little tiny plates and plastic cups. She then brought us a hundred year old aluminum tea pot. The tea tasted more like warm water than actual tea.
Brother Monk ordered for the table. In case you don’t know, I am not an adventurous eater. I know the foods I like and stick to them. The thought of just eating whatever was put before me gives me the willies.
I ate to be polite. I concentrated on the dishes were I could see meat. Yes, dammit, I cherry picked. But it was very good. Much like in the states, they had brought bowls of rice to heap our food on.
In the second round of three dishes, Brother Monk explained to us there was a famous dish called ‘Ants climbing Trees’. So, famous in fact that I had actually made the dish from a Chinese cook book years ago. This dish was far superior. I helped myself to most of it. It’s basically spicy bits of pork and long thin clear noodles. Thinking about it makes me want more of it. I really need to go eat breakfast. But I digress.
After we ate, Brother Monk led us to a shop next to the restaurant. It was a supply shop that sold Feiyue shoes. Patty was able to replace her missing pair for a whopping 24 Yuan. Or about 4 bucks.
One of the sights that had been recommended that I see and hadn’t was the nunnery near the temple. Eventually, Brother Monk figured out where I was talking about. that was supposed to be our next stop on our itinerary.
Instead we went up these steep stone stairs to the top of a dirt mound to the west of the temple. There were two leafless trees and plenty of broken concrete. We were surrounded by a thicket of bare branches. If I was going to choose a scenic location to film, this would not be it. I mentioned the spot didn’t seem very evocative of China. I was told by Sal it was a very famous spot where they shot a lot Shaolin instructional DVD’s. To top if off, Sal wanted to shoot a twelve form set using my camera and Patty’s. It seemed like a big ego stroke.
I was not enthused by the location or what I was filming. I was also very conscious that it was getting late in the day. The Sun sets at 4:30 in this part of China. I felt we were wasting time here when we could be filming in more scenic locations.
We also spent a lot of time getting Phil to find us. Sal wanted him in the demos, too. Phil was busy arranging to stay in the Temple. He already had gotten permission from the abbot when he spoke to him earlier. I tried to get them to bring me to the Abbot’s office, but I was looked at like I didn’t know what I was talking about.
Let’s just say I didn’t film all the twelve forms of the set like I was supposed to. If there was point to care even less, I would have. The capper was Natasha asking me to tape her doing the Wu Bu Quan. Ha! This is the basic form that is the heart of the Zombie movie I was making in the United States.
Eventually we moved on up the trail to the Nunnery. There were more stairs. Would it kill these people to put in an escalator? Would it kill me to lose some weight and get in shape? Probably.
There was still some sunlight entering the canyon when we arrived. There were three stone ledge leading up to the gate, along with more stairs. Sal was in his get busy mood. I was in my catch my breath while I wandered around mode. I told them to take a break while I recovered.
One of the reasons to come to this temple was you were supposed to be able to see Damo’s statue from it and the trail to his cave. Sure,enough you could. You could also see the exceptional set of stairs leading up to the cave. The pros and cons of attempting the climb today warred in my head. I really felt the trip to China wouldn’t be complete without visiting that cave. I also didn’t want to have my pre-50 coronary.
The kids were getting antsy by the time I came back down the stairs. We did some more filming of forms and weapons. It could have looked better, but oh well. We even got Phil to do some stuff.
Afterwards, I explored the grounds of the nunnery. I irritated some dogs back in the living quarters of the nuns. I’m thinking they don’t speak English, either. I lit more incense for Mr. Ching with the help of one of the nuns. The wind was blowing so hard it kept extinguishing the candle I was using to light the sticks. But I eventually got it done. I even got to put it right on the altar instead of in the brazier outside.
Sal and the girls were filming their own little fight scene film when I came back. I sat at the top of the steps and watched Sal in action as a director. During a break in their filming, I snuck back up the trail to see what was behind the Nunnery. I got a really clear view of the statue on the hill and the stairs. It didn’t seem like it was all that far away. But those stairs continued to cast a shadow over my heart.
As we walked back down to the entrance of Shaolin, I told Sal and the girls about my plan to go to Longmen grottos on Tuesday. In my manipulative mind, I thought if I could get Sal to go maybe he could find a way to get us there. I’d been calling and emailing Mr. Ching’s travel agent but hadn’t received any response. I really wanted to go and was willing to make a deal.
Sal and company thought it sounded fun and decided to go to Longmen, too. He was sure his landlady at the hostel could help us get there. This would be the same landlady that invited us to the martial arts demonstration that turned out to be a song and dance festival.
Since Sal’s compact flash card reader had died, he opted to come over to my hotel room to use mine. My paranoid mind proposed it was also an opportunity for himto get the footage I had shot on his computer.
We solidified the plans to go to Longmen which is just this side on Langyou about thirty miles east of Dengfeng. His landlady had indeed known the buses to get there, but it was going to be a little tricky. We would have to take a bus to a taxi to get there. As we Skyped later, we set the departure time for 6:40am
Another day of the bitter and the sweet.
As is the case on this trip, I awoke at 3 and couldn’t return to sleep. One night, I snapped awake, looked at my watch and determined it was 4:30. I got up, showered and shaved and then started Skype to talk to Cindi. She wanted to know why I was up at 1:30 local time. No, it was 4:30 here. But when I looked at my computer clock it confirmed what Cindi said. Later when I checked my watch, it still said 4:30. When I was setting the alarm to make sure I woke up at the right time, I didn’t depress the button, so it had just stayed at 4:30.
The fog wasn’t quite as thick this morning when I arrived at the arrival area for Shaolin. But the wind still blew nice and coldly. I was a couple minutes early, so I wandered around looking at the closed stores, rattling the handle of the locked bathrooms. 7:30 rolled around with no sign of Sal.
He eventually rolled up at ten to eight.
The only people in front of the dragon gate when we arrived were the guards, ticket takers and monks. During the half mile walk from the gate to the temple, I was introduced to Philip, the fourth member of Sal’s quartet. He was planning to stay inside the temple. He also wanted to spend the night in one of the local caves. Feeling how cold it was, I didn’t think spending the night in a rock cave was not all that appealing.
To the amusement of all, I stripped off my outer layers, so I could do another self-portrait. This time I was wearing my Master Tu school t-shirt. Two visiting monks asked me to take their pictures. One of the guys was huge. He had studied at the Temple but had since left. Sal seemed to think the one monk had appeared in KFM. The beads on his bracelet were the size of golf balls.
Then I video taped Sal and the girls doing forms and weapons sets in front of the dragon gate. Sal’s stuff looked pretty good and so did Patty’s . But I think Natasha was too new to the routines because she made mistakes.
Tourists with their guides started to show up at this time. But they were very nice about allowing us to film. None of them walked into the shots to get their pictures taken. They even applauded the routines. The monks looked on amused.
The monks at the gate stopped me from bringing the big camera into the temple. At first they wanted to confiscate it completely, but settled on taking just the battery. Naturally, I had an extra battery in my backpack. But I abided by the wishes of the monk guards and elected not to use it.
Being honorable, was a poor decision, because I wasn’t in the temple more than ten minutes before I noticed the buttons on the back of the still camera weren’t working. I couldn’t get the preview to work. I couldn’t record video. Nothing. The only thing that might have been working was the picture taking part of the camera. I couldn’t be sure because the photo preview button wasn’t working. All I knew was when I clicked the shutter, the number of pictures left to take number on the screen counted down.
Patty and Sal’s cameras continued to work so I helped shoot with those. Admirers followed us and wanted to take pictures with the martial artists. The head of the warrior monks was there and he reluctantly took pictures with us, too.
One of the monks who trained with Sal at his Sifu’s school met up with us. He offered Sal and company critiques about their performances. We then followed him to the Zen tea shop next door to the main temple.
On the way out, my battery was returned.
The monk running the tea shop joined us and treated us to free tea. I tried to use the warmth of the tea to thaw my frozen camera. At least I hope it was frozen. I considered this might be a holdover from the camera’s crash to the ground at Taguo.
We heard music coming from the courtyard behind the tea shop. Brother monk said a performance was starting. The group immediately raced over there, using the seniority of the Brother Monk to get us beyond the guards. I was now back in the temple with the big camera and it’s battery.
Wooden benches had been set up close to a small stage in front of a tower. Audience members already filled some of the seats, but there was still plenty of room for us in this intimate setting. You could see the monks warming up to the side. I noticed one of the monks warming up with a Monk’s spade. I had read about this form in KFM and couldn’t wait to film it. At least I think it was the Monk’s spade.
The demonstration seemed to be pretty standard fare with a few exceptions. The group did an abbreviated Yi Jin Jing. A young boy came out and did some Tongzigong. He had a few moves I didn’t recognize and plenty that I did. There were some forms. There was some weapons including the Spade, which seemed very short. The monk also seemed a little blasé about doing it.
They did the nail through glass. One monk did the iron head demo by breaking a bar over his head. Then another young boy came out to do head rolls and he was fantastic. The best thing he did was to stand up on one leg and kick the other leg into a hold position behind his head. He didn’t pull it up there, he kicked it there. I was thankful I had the camera rolling.
They also did a fight set between staff and sword that was very good. Really fast. The blows and blocks were tight to the body. I should be filming more of that.
By this point, the back of my camera had thawed, so I could actually check that my camera was indeed working. All the stills I had been shooting were in the camera. Plus, I got to take stills of the demo. I also took photos of the people in the audience taking photos of me.
Brother Monk went with us to the pagoda forest. We found a spot in the back near some of the oldest pagodas and the unknown pagoda which celebrates all monks not just the famous abbots.
It was a good spot. Few tourists interrupted us by walking into the shots. Most just wanted to see what we were doing. The sun shined to help light the scene.
Patty discovered that she had left her shoes behind. We couldn’t film the three of them doing routines as Natasha and Patty had to share shoes. Some of the footage looked great, but again there was a glaring weakness. Brother monk offered tips on better routines.
Brother monk offered to take us to lunch at a local restaurant. I was a bit confused, because the only restaurant I had seen was the tea garden.
During the course of my trip, I had yet to stop for lunch. There wasn’t enough light in the day for me to take breaks. I was on vacation to see things. I could always eat when I got back to the United States.
However I bowed to the groups wishes and followed them to lunch.
A van picked us up next to the 500 Buddha hall across the bridge from the Dragon Gate. A road led up into the hills that I hadn’t noticed before. Up in this little canyon, high above the temple, were dozens of boxy houses and shops.
We stopped at this little restaurant. The Women in charge led us into a dingy poorly lit room. The table was covered with a thin plastic sheet. She gave us little tiny plates and plastic cups. She then brought us a hundred year old aluminum tea pot. The tea tasted more like warm water than actual tea.
Brother Monk ordered for the table. In case you don’t know, I am not an adventurous eater. I know the foods I like and stick to them. The thought of just eating whatever was put before me gives me the willies.
I ate to be polite. I concentrated on the dishes were I could see meat. Yes, dammit, I cherry picked. But it was very good. Much like in the states, they had brought bowls of rice to heap our food on.
In the second round of three dishes, Brother Monk explained to us there was a famous dish called ‘Ants climbing Trees’. So, famous in fact that I had actually made the dish from a Chinese cook book years ago. This dish was far superior. I helped myself to most of it. It’s basically spicy bits of pork and long thin clear noodles. Thinking about it makes me want more of it. I really need to go eat breakfast. But I digress.
After we ate, Brother Monk led us to a shop next to the restaurant. It was a supply shop that sold Feiyue shoes. Patty was able to replace her missing pair for a whopping 24 Yuan. Or about 4 bucks.
One of the sights that had been recommended that I see and hadn’t was the nunnery near the temple. Eventually, Brother Monk figured out where I was talking about. that was supposed to be our next stop on our itinerary.
Instead we went up these steep stone stairs to the top of a dirt mound to the west of the temple. There were two leafless trees and plenty of broken concrete. We were surrounded by a thicket of bare branches. If I was going to choose a scenic location to film, this would not be it. I mentioned the spot didn’t seem very evocative of China. I was told by Sal it was a very famous spot where they shot a lot Shaolin instructional DVD’s. To top if off, Sal wanted to shoot a twelve form set using my camera and Patty’s. It seemed like a big ego stroke.
I was not enthused by the location or what I was filming. I was also very conscious that it was getting late in the day. The Sun sets at 4:30 in this part of China. I felt we were wasting time here when we could be filming in more scenic locations.
We also spent a lot of time getting Phil to find us. Sal wanted him in the demos, too. Phil was busy arranging to stay in the Temple. He already had gotten permission from the abbot when he spoke to him earlier. I tried to get them to bring me to the Abbot’s office, but I was looked at like I didn’t know what I was talking about.
Let’s just say I didn’t film all the twelve forms of the set like I was supposed to. If there was point to care even less, I would have. The capper was Natasha asking me to tape her doing the Wu Bu Quan. Ha! This is the basic form that is the heart of the Zombie movie I was making in the United States.
Eventually we moved on up the trail to the Nunnery. There were more stairs. Would it kill these people to put in an escalator? Would it kill me to lose some weight and get in shape? Probably.
There was still some sunlight entering the canyon when we arrived. There were three stone ledge leading up to the gate, along with more stairs. Sal was in his get busy mood. I was in my catch my breath while I wandered around mode. I told them to take a break while I recovered.
One of the reasons to come to this temple was you were supposed to be able to see Damo’s statue from it and the trail to his cave. Sure,enough you could. You could also see the exceptional set of stairs leading up to the cave. The pros and cons of attempting the climb today warred in my head. I really felt the trip to China wouldn’t be complete without visiting that cave. I also didn’t want to have my pre-50 coronary.
The kids were getting antsy by the time I came back down the stairs. We did some more filming of forms and weapons. It could have looked better, but oh well. We even got Phil to do some stuff.
Afterwards, I explored the grounds of the nunnery. I irritated some dogs back in the living quarters of the nuns. I’m thinking they don’t speak English, either. I lit more incense for Mr. Ching with the help of one of the nuns. The wind was blowing so hard it kept extinguishing the candle I was using to light the sticks. But I eventually got it done. I even got to put it right on the altar instead of in the brazier outside.
Sal and the girls were filming their own little fight scene film when I came back. I sat at the top of the steps and watched Sal in action as a director. During a break in their filming, I snuck back up the trail to see what was behind the Nunnery. I got a really clear view of the statue on the hill and the stairs. It didn’t seem like it was all that far away. But those stairs continued to cast a shadow over my heart.
As we walked back down to the entrance of Shaolin, I told Sal and the girls about my plan to go to Longmen grottos on Tuesday. In my manipulative mind, I thought if I could get Sal to go maybe he could find a way to get us there. I’d been calling and emailing Mr. Ching’s travel agent but hadn’t received any response. I really wanted to go and was willing to make a deal.
Sal and company thought it sounded fun and decided to go to Longmen, too. He was sure his landlady at the hostel could help us get there. This would be the same landlady that invited us to the martial arts demonstration that turned out to be a song and dance festival.
Since Sal’s compact flash card reader had died, he opted to come over to my hotel room to use mine. My paranoid mind proposed it was also an opportunity for himto get the footage I had shot on his computer.
We solidified the plans to go to Longmen which is just this side on Langyou about thirty miles east of Dengfeng. His landlady had indeed known the buses to get there, but it was going to be a little tricky. We would have to take a bus to a taxi to get there. As we Skyped later, we set the departure time for 6:40am
Another day of the bitter and the sweet.
So much for the flickr badge idea. Dammit