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Shanghai, Day 15

Shanghai, China


Our last day in China.
Free time in the morning went quick. Some of us walked along the Bund, others went to visit the Jade Buddha temple and the tea shop there. There wasn't much time since we had to leave at noon. If you weren't tired when you woke up, you were now.

As we were checking out we said good bye to the memebers who are traveling longer. We said good bye to Robert who was also staying a few days longer.

And finally we had to say goodbye to our national guide Sunny. He was our hero and our support, we were sad to say goodbye.


permalink written by  Benjamin Satterfield on September 29, 2005 from Shanghai, China
from the travel blog: China Tour Fall 2005
tagged China, Jade, Temple, Buddha, Buddhism, Pirated, Bund, Shanhai, JadeBuddhaTemple and Shopping

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Beijing, Day 3

Beijing, China


The day started out with an intense ambition. We had three main attractions to visit: The Great Wall, The Summer Palace and Tian An Men Square, in that order.

The Great Wall featured, of course, lots of steps. Most at a severe incline. It's probably one of the most international tourist sites in the world. I heard at least 10 different languages spoken on the hike up. Where most people climb the great wall and some even skate it, for Robert it was just another obstacle to jump over in order to find plants. And find them he did. He came back with plastic bags of not t-shirts but of plants to show us on the bus. Mao said your not a hero until you climb the great wall... I wonder what he thought about teachers who jump it. There was a nice hook on the ride to the wall, yet again by our tour guide. We took a short detour to see a jade factory, which of course had a massive jade store attached. We all protested before going in, but yet again, most people ended up buying something (perhaps there's subliminal messaging in these places). The hook worked.

The next stop was the Summer Palace which is a good drive back from the wall. The palace is one of the largest parks in all of China and was the vacation spot for the later dynasties. The gardens and lake were a welcome haven for us, although we had to rush through it in order to fit all of the days activities. Where there is Yin there is Yang... to contrast the peace of the garden, just outside was an alley back to the bus, which we've nicknamed "swindler alley." Not only was the long alley loaded with poor merchants hounding us to buy their t-shirt knock-offs and cheap crafts, they were ready to scam the tourists. After some tour members put up a good job haggeling down the price of some goods, they found their change back to be counterfeit bills... So it is possible to get Shanghaied in Beijing.

After dinner we got to walk a few minutes around Tian An Men Square, which was lit up at night and preparing for the upcoming Mid-Autum Festival (moon cake festival).

After the square we drove to the massive Beijing train station to get aboard our sleeper train to Luoyang. Upon entering there was a huge crowd outside waiting to get in and watching someone get detained by the police. After a bout of abuse, about 5 red guards handcuffed the guy and took him away. Then we had to deal with the bottlenecking and the thousands of people laying around or rushing to get on their train. While we were all excited to hop into our soft sleeper cabin on the train, we quickly realized that after a day of hiking around without a shower, the tight quarters weren't as pleasant as we thought, especially after we took our shoes off...



permalink written by  Benjamin Satterfield on September 16, 2005 from Beijing, China
from the travel blog: China Tour Fall 2005
tagged China, Beijing, TheGreatWall, SummerPalace, TianAnMenSquare, Jade, Theft, MoonCakeFestival, Autumn, Festival, RedGuard, Luoyang and SleeperTrain

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Jade Buddha Temple

Shanghai, China


Jade Buddha Temple is one of the few Buddhist temple around in Shanghai. The temple is easily identifiable by its bright saffron walls. In the inside, the main attraction is the two-meter-high white jade sitting Buddha encrusted with jewels which weight around 1,000kg.

Inside the temple, it has quite a number of ancient sculptures, rare painting and Buddhist scriptuers. There are more than 7,000 Dazang sutras kept inside the Jade Buddha Tower. The temple consist of 3 main halls and two courtyards.

The first hall is the Devajara Hall where statues of the four celestial kings and Maitreya are enshrined. It was said that the Maitreya is the Budai Monk. In 916, before his death, he had told people that he was the reincarnation of the future Buddha Maitreya. Later, people called him Buddha Maitreya and began to worship him in temples.

The second hall is Mahavira Hall. Three large gilded Buddha statues: the Buddhas of the past (Bhaisajya-guru), present (Sakyamuni) and future (Maitreya) are kept in the hall. The one in the center is Sakyamuni, east of it is Bhaisajya-guru and west is Maitreya. Eighteen gilded Luohan statues stand around them.

After visiting the Devajara Hall, we reached the Jade Buddha Tower, which is 1.9m tall and 1.34m wide, stands on the second floor. Inlaid with diamonds and agates, the jade Buddha is sitting leisurely at the moment of his enlightenment.

The temple also has two valuable jade statues.The Sitting Buddha and the Recumbent Buddha. Both the Sitting Buddha and the Recumbent Buddha are carved with whole white jade. The sparkling and crystal-clear white jade gives the Buddhas the beauty of sanctity and make them more vivid.

The Sitting Buddha is 190 centimeters high, wearing a robe inlaid with precious the agate and the emerald and portraying the Buddha at the moment of his meditation and enlightenment.

The Recumbent Buddha is 96 centimeters long, lying on the right side with the right hand supporting the head and the left hand placing on the left leg, this shape is called the "lucky repose". The sedate face shows the peaceful mood of Sakyamuni when he left this world.



permalink written by  PorkyPo on November 11, 2009 from Shanghai, China
from the travel blog: Visit to Shanghai
tagged Shanghai, Jade, Temple, Buddha and Yeschinatour

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Jade!

Beijing, China


We left NC on Thursday; we arrived in China Friday. Sunday morning we were still both jet lagged. What to do at 5am? Dirt market! There is a weekend flea/dirt market of many decades history on the south east side. It's grown very touristy in recent years and the Prospect of finding an authentic antique are increasingly slim. But what else to do at that early weekend hour? Dawn barely Broken, we head for the subway. It used to be that one had to get to the dirt market by 5am to snag the best deals. We arrived just after 6 and very little was yet set up. We wandered as venders unpacked. RJ being an antiques dealer I thought this place would interest him.

I didn't plan to find anything but did! Ancient pieces of jade that used to be bracelets, fracture plains filed smooth, with holes drilled at mid-point or end. I'll have a dozen unique pieces to add to my collection very soon. dRt cHc* to rise again!!

While working these unique pieces into my designs I drop one. It Broke. My supplier tried to file the edges of what the became earring dangles (and they look good!) but being high on the Mohls scale jade, it ruined her file!

  • dRt cHc is my line of high end, exclusive, one of a kind and rare jewelry pieces.


  • permalink written by  prrrrl on October 5, 2013 from Beijing, China
    from the travel blog: Beijing, 2010 or Liaoning, 2013. They are appear to be mixed up!
    tagged Jade, Broken, PanJiaYuan and DRtCHc

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