Wednesday, 5 March 2014

Xiamen

Xiamen – 5th March

Unfortunately today was still overcast and misty with temperatures around 14 degrees.

Our excursion today was Traditions of Xiamen, which we thought was going to be a visit to a Palace and a Temple with a scenic drive along the coast road.  However, it turned out to be a visit to a temple in honour of a doctor that could ‘heal the dead’ and the South Putuo Temple, the home of the Statue of the Laughing Buddha , which is an active Temple with over 200 monks and was built a thousand years ago.

Our first stop was the temple in honour of the healing doctor.  We were faced with a daunting task of climbing 700 odd steps to the statue in his honour.  Doreen declined the challenge, however Geoffrey managed the climb, with many stops on the way.




Our second stop was the South Putuo Temple where we paid homage to the Heavenly King Hall and listened to the chanting of the monks.



All in all not a very exciting excursion and not what we were expecting ( we may discuss with P&O tomorrow !! )

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