Yes, that's right, we visited the Shoulin Temple which is obviously the home of the world famous shoulin monks and their martial art. Although we had intended to head there for the whole day we ended up, through misdirection followed by persuasion, on a Chinese tour bus which turned out very much for the best. I seem to be writing similar reports on a lot of our excursions so it must be that we are very easily led away from our intended course of action onto something completely different. Still so far things have worked out as well, if not better, than intended and so hopefully these "accidents" will continue to provide a source of stories and adventures of a
good kind! Back to our bus full of local tourists (i.e. non-English speaking, not even a bit) we went first to the birthplace of a monk who had traveled to India and returned with a rich supply of sutras. The Big Goose Pagoda in Xi'an was built to house these in. The second stop was then more unexpected. We followed half the group through a couple of rooms in a more run-down looking building, thinking it was just some other old temple of sorts, only to then find ourselves in a small room with a few benches and a monk sitting facing us behind a ornament strewn table with an able assistant in tow. He then
proceeded to give (what we presumed anyway) a short service which he ended by wondering up the benches flicking holy water on all including us. Finally we were given some incense to burn and were led away. Not an experience we would have had by simply catching the local bus. A few stops later at scenic and cultural locations and we arrived at our intended destination. As expected, the tourists have very much landed at Shoulin. There was a 30 minute show put on which was fantastic. You could really see the animal origins which is how the art progressed, t
hrough studying the movement of different species. We saw several hundred students in training, there are 6000 on site at any one time. Finally of course we wondered through the actual monastery! It was very beautiful despite the masses though most has recently been rebuilt following fire and destruction so it was not as ancient as appeared. The temple was a worthwhile trip but the day was made infinitely better by all the other stops.
Yes, that's right, we visited the Shoulin Temple which is obviously the home of the world famous shoulin monks and their martial art. Although we had intended to head there for the whole day we ended up, through misdirection followed by persuasion, on a Chinese tour bus which turned out very much for the best. I seem to be writing similar reports on a lot of our excursions so it must be that we are very easily led away from our intended course of action onto something completely different. Still so far things have worked out as well, if not better, than intended and so hopefully these "accidents" will continue to provide a source of stories and adventures of a 
good kind! Back to our bus full of local tourists (i.e. non-English speaking, not even a bit) we went first to the birthplace of a monk who had traveled to India and returned with a rich supply of sutras. The Big Goose Pagoda in Xi'an was built to house these in. The second stop was then more unexpected. We followed half the group through a couple of rooms in a more run-down looking building, thinking it was just some other old temple of sorts, only to then find ourselves in a small room with a few benches and a monk sitting facing us behind a ornament strewn table with an able assistant in tow. He then 
proceeded to give (what we presumed anyway) a short service which he ended by wondering up the benches flicking holy water on all including us. Finally we were given some incense to burn and were led away. Not an experience we would have had by simply catching the local bus. A few stops later at scenic and cultural locations and we arrived at our intended destination. As expected, the tourists have very much landed at Shoulin. There was a 30 minute show put on which was fantastic. You could really see the animal origins which is how the art progressed, t
hrough studying the movement of different species. We saw several hundred students in training, there are 6000 on site at any one time. Finally of course we wondered through the actual monastery! It was very beautiful despite the masses though most has recently been rebuilt following fire and destruction so it was not as ancient as appeared. The temple was a worthwhile trip but the day was made infinitely better by all the other stops.
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