Sunday began and ended with rain, but that was okay. Us typically drought-minded Coloradoans considered it an experience in itself to be in the middle of a downpour. It didn’t keep us from touring the Lingyin Temple with 3 zillion other wet tourists. Lingyin Temple (or Peak Flying from Afar) is an ancient Buddist temple at Hangzhou’s West Lake. The 24.8 meter (75 feet), gold-covered Buddha is the largest woodcarving of a sitting Buddha in China. We experienced some sort of ceremony performed by the monks, ‘met’ hundreds of Buddhas who had done some sort of good deed and were therefore given a statue in their honor, smelled lots on incense, and learned a lot of about ancient Chinese traditions and superstitions.
After the temple, we visited a tea plantation/museum and then a silk factory. We saw the actual process of spinning silk worms into silk and then how it is made into material like bedding.
After a long ride home, where we all got very close to one another -- literally, we enjoyed a nice ‘hot pot’ meal where we tossed a variety of meats, vegetables, noodles and dumplings into a boiling pot and cooked our own dinners.
Another long, wonderful, well-fed day.
After the temple, we visited a tea plantation/museum and then a silk factory. We saw the actual process of spinning silk worms into silk and then how it is made into material like bedding.
After a long ride home, where we all got very close to one another -- literally, we enjoyed a nice ‘hot pot’ meal where we tossed a variety of meats, vegetables, noodles and dumplings into a boiling pot and cooked our own dinners.
Another long, wonderful, well-fed day.
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