White Horse Temple

Monk sweeping with a beautiful broom

In 64 A.D. Emperor Ming had a dream of a golden deity flying by his palace. He asked someone for an interpretation and they said it was the Buddha. He sent men to India to bring back scriptures, which they did...on two white horses.

White Horse Temple, China's first Buddhist Temple

From across the courtyard we saw these monks bent over something. Kaia asked me what they were doing. I explained that I noticed when we came in that they had a lot of papers on the desk so maybe they were using some ancient magnifying glass to read the scriptures. When we got closer we realized they were trying to program their cell phones! Ha!

This gentleman wanted to know if we were Americans.

Mark and "Florence"

Corn drying in the courtyards

Dinner at the hotel

Riding a golf cart to Longman Grottoes

Our group

A hummingbird started flying around Bob. Mark was intrigued and asked me to take a photo!

The hummingbird at his shoulder

The translations were really funny sometimes!

We couldn't figure out what these guys were doing...just gently pounding on these blocks...maybe a labor surplus!

Goldfish pond

1,400 caves hold over 100, 000 carvings of Buddha and bodhisattvas. The carvings were done over the course of 600 years beginning in 473 A.D.

Many carvings were destroyed by the elements or during anti-Buddhist periods.