Stirring up the Chinese: Hangzhou 杭州 (Oct. 2-4)

Back again after one year: Hangzhou train station.

I was pretty much surprised when Chao pulled up in that ride;)

Firstly, we hit the tea plantations and I got an idea of how the tea trees look like.

Afterwards, we met Chao's mom for lunch in their hometown Lin An (临安), then we went home and ate these plenty of fruits...

...followed by dinner which Chao's dad had been preparing for two hours.

Very delicious food here.

In Chao's uncle's supermarket.

Mao Tais.

A rich Chinese breakfast.

Could not zoom any further onto it without notice....

We went back to Hangzhou in order to see the Ling Yin Si 灵隐寺 (Temple of Inspired Seclusion).

As you can see it features a large number of grottos and religious rock carvings.

The Feilai Feng grottos.

The monastery was originally founded in 328 AD during the Eastern Jin Dynasty by Indian monk Huili.

The formal entrance of the temple is the Hall of the Heavenly Kings (天王殿).

The second and principal hall is the Mahavira Hall, or the Grand Hall of the Great Sage (大雄宝殿). It houses, as is traditional, a statue of Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha. The present statue was carved in 1956 from camphor wood in Tang Dynasty style and coated with 60 taels of gold. It is the largest wooden Buddhist statue in China (notice that it is the largest wooden Buddhist statue, the tallest wooden Lama statue is located at the Lama Temple in Beijing!!)

Arranged along the sides of the hall are images of the 18 principal arhats, and other prominent Buddhists.

At the back of the main statue is a statue of Guanyin, backed by a large screen that features the carved images of some 150 Buddhist personalities, including the pilgrims of the Journey to the West, Daoji, and arhats.

The fifth and last hall on the main axis is the Avatamsaka Hall or Huayan Hall ( 华严殿). Also built in 2002, this hall houses statues of the three sages of the Avatamsaka Sutra, known as the Huayan Sutra in Chinese - Shakyamuni, Manjusri, and Samantabhadra.

The Hall of Five Hundred Arhats (五百罗汉堂). The building has a complex floor plan, shaped like a Buddhist swastika. Along the arms of the swastika are arranged the five hundred arhats slightly larger-than-life bronze statues. Each statue is seated on a unique ornate seat. At the centre, where the arms of the swastika join, stands a bronze canopy housing statues of four bodhisattvas representing the four cardinal directions. This is currently the tallest solid bronze structure in the world.