Great Paul of China: Shaolin Temple, Part 2

I didn't do sports when I was a kid.

As a result, I've always been skinny, and although skinny, I've never been lean. My body is all flab and no muscle. So kungfu last week was tough, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. The soreness accumulated with each day until I thought I couldn't take it anymore.

And that's when my group went to Songshan Mountain to attempt the four and a half hour ascent!

(One of the many, many, many flights of steps.)

No worries, though, I made it all the way to the top, and it was one of my proudest moments.

For a brief moment I was the highest thing in Henan Province, China! Actually, I'm not sure if that's true. That's what my friend said when were both standing on the peak, and I liked the way it sounded.

You'll notice in the pictures above that there are steps at Songshan, so we weren't actually hiking in the wilderness or anything. Even so, the steps were very steep and not in the best condition. Climbing up was exhausting, and I was one of the last people to make it to the top (some people didn't make it to the top, though.) The view was just beautiful.

There were also cool statues and monuments along the way. Apparantely, Shaolin holds significance not just for Buddhism, but for Taoism and Confucianism as well. I did not learn as much as I wanted to about East Asian religion during my stay, because the monks we spoke to were hard to understand, and one of our interview sessions was cancelled completely. So while we HBA students were mainly there as tourists, I still had a great time getting to see some of "real" China (even though Westernism and commercialism have reached these places, too.)

A few days later, we visited the Longmen Grottoes. To be honest, I'm not really sure what the history of this place is, but it was really cool.

I'm super glad I chose the Shaolin Temple as my social study program. Beijing is great, but I want to see as much of China as I can. I'm already excited for my trip to Shanghai in August, where I'll be staying with my of the first friends I made at Yale, Liz Cui (one of Yale's 50 most Beautiful People 2010 fyi).

Another upside of my trip was that it gave me new inspiration to work out. So, I went to the gym every day this week and hope to continue this trend.

For those of you with Facebook, check out my latest photo album to see all of my pictures from Shaolin. For those of you without, here are a few more:

One of the Buddhist (or Confucianist or Taoist) temples we visited lit up when you put money in the donation bin. Very high-tech for such an ancient place.