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enjoyed a beautiful morning soaking up the sunshine and the beauty
of Yuyuan Gardens, we headed off to a Mongolian bar-b-que restaurant.
If you've never tried it you should. You select your raw meats and
vegetables, hand them to the cook who places it on a rotating grill
and wait for it to cook. It was quite good and you controlled what
and how much you ate with the exact spices that you want. Following
lunch we headed over to Yufo Si, the Temple of the Jade Buddha, famous
for its two white jade Buddha statues brought to China from Burma
by the monk Huigen in 1882. They were moved to Shanghai in 1918 when
the temple was constructed. The one statue depicting a sleeping Buddha,
which represents Buddha's entry to nirvana, is very rare, however,
the other showing Buddha seated is more famous. |
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This
statue, outside the Mongolian
bar-b-que restaurant accurately
represents how you feel having
eaten there .... definitely full. |
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Side
of one of the temple buildings showing
statues of Ming Lions and plantings
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On
the way into
temple John ran
into a bamboo
ladder and just
had to give it a
try. |
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Side
of the temple |
Buddha
statues in the temple |
White
Jade Buddha Statue |
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White
Jade statue of a reclining Buddha |
Anne
and I have seen many statues of Buddha in our travels. Statues made
of gold are quite common. In Bangkok there is an Emerald Buddha
statue, but this is the first time we've seen statues made of white
jade. They were beautiful. The one depicting Buddha seated (picture
above) was cordoned off and pictures weren't allowed (sorry, I snuck
one in anyhow). The one depicting the reclining Buddha (left) was
very accessible right outside the gift shop. Both were beautiful
examples of jade sculptures.
Going
upstairs to view the jade Buddha statue we looked out some windows
onto an interesting roof pattern. You know my affinity for angles
and interesting Chinese architecture so I have to show a couple
of the pictures. Hope you enjoy them.
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Dragon
sculpture |
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Interesting
roof pattern and ornaments
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| Finishing
up our visit at the Temple of the Jade Buddha we boarded the bus bound
for our last stop of a very full day of sightseeing, a visit to Shanghai's
historic Bund. Continue to the next page to enjoy pictures of the
Bund during the day and evening ... |
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