Tongtie Binguan Datong

... bed listening in... ahhh nothing like amusing the locals. <br><br>When we arrived in Datong, I walked Jeanne to the hotel on the right side of the station and then meandered across to the other side of the station to book into the Feitian Hotel. Yes, I sat there for 2 hours whilst the girls behind reception got their beauty sleep, and by god did they need it! <br><br ...

... VERY narrow and you have to duck to get down the stairs. The monastery looks very tiny hanging from this enormous cliff face and it really is an incredible engineering feat.<br><br>After lunch we made our way to the Yungang Caves. These grottoes house approximately 50,000 carved images and statues of Buddhas and bodhisattvas that range in height from 4 centimeters to 7 meters. The carvings date back 1,000 or so years.<br><br>I thought the caves were awesome ...

... the importance of guanxi (relationships) on this trip. One of Lu Wei's "uncles" (similar to "Uncle" Roger, "Uncle" Roy and "Uncle" Randy) works at the Grottoes and he got us in for free. Lu Wei complained about the lack of tour guide to explain everything for me while we walked around, but I was content with simply snapping photos and admiring the ancient art. After the Grottoes we went to several other interesting sites within Datong: Jiu Long Bi (Nine Dragon Wall) and a couple of ...

... az po chvili mi doslo, ze to mame prelezt. No my to prelezli, ale tem babkam bylo pres sedmdesat, proste cinsti duchodci tu maji znatelne lepsi fyzicku nez v jinych zemich. Pagoda byla fajn, pokoukali jsme se a hura na nas desny hotel. Druhy den byly v planu Jeskyne tisice budhu (ten nazev jsem si vycucala z prstu, v originale je to Yungang Shiku). Abych to vysvetlila, kolem 5. st. byl budhismus dost popularni, resp. pote i statnim nabozenstvim, v dusledku cehoz se ...

... asking me the same type of questions in her basic English.  Questions like "Do you like apples?" It was an amusing interaction.  The massage was alright too. We decide to head to the hostel and pick up some Subway sandwiches on the way.  Shower finally, sleep, and head to Wangfujing Street.  This is a very famous street in Beijing that is know for its traditional Chinese foods and shopping.  Basically any creature that can fit on a kabob stick is fair game for this street.  Stalls sell ...

... during the frigid wait, so I was too tired and lazy to explore the entire mountain in the morning. Men and Their Gods The most memorable sites during the shotgun tour were the Yungang Caves and the Hanging Temple. It's amazing what totalitarian regimes + devotion can accomplish despite primitive technology. The Yungang Caves is China's most well preserved set of grottoes, where thousands of Buddhist statues were carved onto walls of 60ish man-made caves (all hollowed out ...

... coffee 'pick me up' and some air conditioning. Now it was time to enter the maze of alley ways that can be found behind the glitz and glamour of Da Xijie and Da Dongjie. Sadly I found that most of the homes and buildings here have been marked for deletion. Maybe if I ever return to Datong City I will find them replaced by more glitz and glamour where each store sells the same ...

... soundtrack to this entry was by the awesome Kyuss. The album was Muchas Gracias, The Best of! _______________________________________ ___________________ Xuankong Si (hanging monastery): Hanging Monastery stands at the foot of Mt. Hengshan, 5 kilometers (3 miles) south of Hunyuan County, and 65 kilometers (40 miles) from downtown Datong City. Since it hangs on the west ...

... cave clusters in China, punctuate the north cliff of Wuzhou Mountain, Datong. The area was excavated along the mountain, extending 1 km (0.62 miles) from east to west, revealing 53 caves and over 51,000 stone statues. The Caves are divided into east, middle, and west parts. Pagodas dominate the eastern parts; west caves are small and ...

... in the entry courtyard of a prince's residence here. Another interesting place in town was an 1000-year-old Buddhist temple still in active worship, it is an early precursor of the Zen (Chan in Chinese spelling) Buddhist sect.<br><br>From Datong ...