I've just had an early morning Kung fu lesson in Shaolin Si, the biggest Kung fu university in the world (30,000 students). It was surprisingly fun and a whole lot like yoga with a few kicks and boxes thrown in. Yesterday we went to see the (in)famous Shaolin temple, its most differentiating feature vs other buddhist temples being holes in some of the massive trees surrounding the temple, supposedly from monks fingers as they've done strength training over the years. We also saw a 30-min Kung fu show, where monks threw needles through a glass window to break a balloon on the other side and broke metal over their heads (yup...). All in, it's a tiny little place, but beautiful and it has been nice to be back up near the mountains, away from the pollution, again. Also the kids in their red school uniforms are amazingly disciplined and fun to watch, especially with that charming and dreamy I-wanna-be-a-moviestar look in their eyes.
Now we're off on our last long travel day (bus and overnight train) as we make our way to Suzhou, China's Venice.
Some 48 or 72 hours later....
I've made it to Suzhou, the 2nd to last stop of my tour through China. Suzhou is a great town, not too far from Shanghai, which is famous for its ancient little Chinese gardens and great canals. I'm hanging out at a cafe, overlooking a canal, listening to James Blunt and having cheesecake (I know, I know, but I just couldn't take another dumpling, beef noodle, or fried rice lunch today)... for a second I got really confused as to where I was.
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