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The West Lake
Today we set out with Mandy and Mr Ding to go first to the West lake. There are 36 'west lakes' on the edge of Chinese city's but apparently they are all imitations of this one. It's very large and split in to 3 separate sections. The last emperor liked Hang Zhou a lot and there is even a stone on the lakeside that they say he actually carved himself, specifically for the lake.
We took a boat ride across the lake admiring the mountains on the north, south and west side of the lake and the highrise buildings of the city on it's east banks.
The Lin Ying Temple
After the lake we moved on to the Lin Ying Temple. It's the largest Buddhist temple in china and has 72 halls in which devotees to the Buddhist faith can use to pray in and pay homage to the very many different images of Buddha available.
Mandy explained to me today that the laughing Buddha looks like he does because he is always ready to laugh at the snobby people on earth and his belly is big enough to contain all of the intolerable things in the world.
Once again we saw wonderful examples of the Buddhist temples in China.
The main hall and entrance to the Lin Ying Temple grounds is via the "Hall of the Heavenly Kings". As you enter, there is a huge statue of the 'Maitreya Buddha', or as we know him, the 'Laughing Buddha'. On the side walls the Four Heavenly Kings stand 25 ft tall and very proud. These are the guardians of the north, south, east and west. The ceiling is painted with phoenixes and dragons.
The second hall is The Grand Hall of the Great Sage and is home a statue of Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha. The statue was carved out of camphor wood in the Tang Dynasty style and is covered with 206 ounces of gold. It's the largest wooden Buddhist statue in China. Behind the statue is a magnificent wooden carving of 150 different Buddhist individuals, including the pilgrims of the Journey to the West, Daoji, and arhats.
We also got to look around the 'The Hall of Five Hundred Arhats' The halls in the building are shaped like a Buddhist swastika. In total, there are five hundred large bronze statues. These statues are of famous buddhist scholars called 'arhats'. Based on real people and what teachings they were responsible for, each statue is different and they all have their own facial expressions. In the middle is a bronze canopy pagoda with 4 Buddhist guardians facing each direction. This is the tallest solid bronze carving in the world.
The Chinese Tea Museum and Longjing Tea Plantation.
After the temple we went to the Chinese Tea Museum were we tried 4 different tea's. We then went on to the Mai village tea plantation. This is Chinas most famous tea plantation having being visited by The Queen in her 1986 tour of China and many other heads of states over the years. Everyone in the village has the family name Mai! Most people in the village do actually work on the plantation anyway but weirdly, if your name is not Mai, you can't work there at all - end of!
They have a huge business here as they supply most of the top quality green tea to the whole of china. It's called 'Longjing' tea or 'dragon well' tea and is supposed to be good for all sorts of ailments and as a preventative herbal medicine! Admittedly, all the people working did look very well but I suspect they can afford lots of life's little luxuries to keep them looking that way as well.....
The Liuhe Pagoda
We finished off the day by visiting one of the oldest pagodas in china.
The Liuhe Pagoda, normally called the Six Harmonies pagoda has 13 floors although only 7 can be reached. It was built in 970 AD in the Northern Song Dynasty by the emperor of China to help defend the city against the rising tides of the Qiantang River. It was destroyed and rebuilt a couple of times in the first 200 years if it's life having been completely destroyed by war in 1121. The current pagoda, (made of just wood and brick) during the Southern Song Dynasty (1127 - 1279 AD) was extended in the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing Dynasties (1644–1911) and is now protected by the Chinese Government.
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