体会中国千年历史--山西太原的晋祠 Appreciate ancient Chinese history at the Jin Temple in Taiyuan, Shanxi, China.

WS 85: 体会中国千年历史--山西太原的晋祠 Appreciate ancient Chinese history at the Jin Temple in Taiyuan, Shanxi, China.

公元前1060年，周武王之子叔虞封侯于唐，即今日的山西一带。叔虞的儿子继父位后，因地临晋水，改国号为晋。为纪念贤王叔虞而建的晋祠，位于太原市西南，大规模建设始于北魏(公元550-559年)。晋祠一直受到历代君王的认可，多次重修扩建。公元1023-1032年，宋仁宗扩建晋祠，也为叔虞之母邑姜(姜子牙之女)修建了规模宏大的圣母殿。

晋祠是崇拜祖先的庙宇，与宗教无关。晋祠是中国现存最早的皇家祭祀园林。晋祠公园里的建筑群是文化和历史宝库，包括主殿在内的许多建筑物都有近一千年的历史。圣母殿中有43尊真人大小的女侍彩塑，其中41尊是在宋代1087年塑造。圣母殿前有个鱼池，鱼沼飞梁，呈十字桥形，也是建于宋代。而金人台上有四尊铁人，其中一尊铸于1097年，已有九百多年的历史。公园里有多棵参天古树，其中一棵柏树，位于圣母殿左侧，相传为西周时所植，故称周柏，距今已有2700多年。树身已高度倾斜，但仍充满生机。

晋祠公园是具几十座古建筑的中国古典园林，已成旅游胜地，我们在2013年曾到此一游。前三张照片所示的是圣母殿，第三张是大殿前廊柱上雕饰的木龙，共有八条，雕于1087年，木雕盘龙是中国现存最早的盘龙雕柱。第四张是鱼沼飞梁，第五张是难老泉，泉水自岩层涌出，是晋水的主要泉源。第六张是周柏，第七张是金人台上的铁人。最后一张是乐师彩塑，塑于元朝，七百年历史。这元塑并不是前面所提到的女侍宋塑，因圣母殿内不可拍照，所以没有女侍宋塑的照片可贴。

About 3,000 years ago the Jin Dynasty was established in present-day Shanxi province in China by the founding emperor Shuyu. A clan temple was built after his death for ancestor worship in the place now called Taiyuan. The clan temple was greatly expanded around the 550s AD and was called Jinci. It has been rebuilt and expanded in subsequent dynasties. 

Jinci is a temple for ancestor worship and has nothing to do with religion. The building complex in Jinci is a treasure house of culture and history. Many buildings including the main hall have a history of near to a thousand years. There are 43 life-size coloured sculptures of maids in a hall created in 1087 in the Song Dynasty. There are four iron guards on a stage, one of which was cast in 1097. There are many towering old trees in the park, one of which is a tilting cypress tree, said to be more than 2,700 years old. 

Jinci has become a tourist attraction. We were here in 2013. The first 3 photos show the mall hall, the 3rd one showing the wooden dragon carved on the front porch of the main hall. There are eight dragons, carved in 1087. Other photos show an old spring, the old cypress tree, an iron guard and the sculpture of a musician created in the Yuan Dynasty, about 200 years younger than the more famous sculptures of the maids.

Holy religious sites on Temple Mount, Jerusalem, Israel

*WS 84: Holy religious sites on Temple Mount, Jerusalem, Israel*

Mt Moriah in Old Jerusalem is the most sacred religious site to the Jews. King Solomon built the First Temple here in the 900s BC. King Herod the Great built the Second Temple here, around the time when Jesus was living. A huge rectangular platform, about 520 m by 300 m, was built up with retaining walls to provide the level open space needed for the temple and the courtyard. This is now called the Temple Mount. 

The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD and no new Jewish temple was built after that. When the Muslims took over Jerusalem from the 600s, several Islamic shrines were built on top of the mount. The Israelis, with no temple to pray, started to pray facing the middle section of the western retaining wall, now called the Wailing Wall. Since the Israelis took control of Jerusalem in 1967, the situation remains status quo. We were on a pilgrimage group tour here in 2008.

The 1st photo shows part of the Temple Mount viewed from the south-western end. The 2nd photo shows a square next to the Wailing Wall. The Jews pray by facing the Wailing Wall, sometimes wailing, as in the 3rd photo. The original height of the wall is about 32 m, now the exposed part around 19 m, built with limestone blocks weighing around 2 to 7 tonnes. 

The next 5 photos show the top of the Mount. The 4th and 5th give a general view with broken columns from the Byzantine era. The 6th shows one of the 8 stairways to the Mount culminating with slender arches.

The 7th shows part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, built in 705 and considered the 3rd holiest mosque in Islam. Muslim belief holds that Prophet Mohammad ascended to Heaven from this spot in 621. The last photo shows the beautiful and famous Dome of the Rock, a Muslim shrine originally built in 692 and the current version rebuilt in 1072.

The beautiful Monastery of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos, Pechersky, Russia

*WS 83: the beautiful Monastery of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos, Pechersky, Russia*

Pechersky is a small village town near to the Russia/Estonia border, and about 50 km west of the bigger town Pskov. Located here is the Monastery of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos. The monastery was officially founded in 1473. It was expanded greatly in the 16th century with 2-m thick walls built around the complex and it withstood many assaults by the Germans and Swedes. It is now a big monastery with some 90 monks. There are some 10 chapels here, some just shallow caves cut into the hill slopes. 

We made a day-trip from Pskov to Pechersky in 2011 to visit the monastery, all because it was claimed that this monastery is the only one in Russia which has been functioning uninterrupted since its founding, including the period of regional wars, World Wars and the oppression during the communist Soviet Union days. We were not disappointed as the buildings and settings here were beautiful.

The 1st photo shows the road called "Bloody Path" from the St Nicholas Gate,  with a fellow tourist from Hong Kong. Women need to put on a simple covering over the head to enter the monastery. The 3rd photo shows the main church. There was nobody speaking English here so we did not know the names and functions of other buildings, but all beautifully painted and decorated.

A side story on this trip* 

To go to this monastery we were told to take a certain number bus from the Pskov bus station. The journey was to take about 80 to 90 minutes. So in the later part of the journey, I went up to the driver showing  him the name of the place we wanted to disembark. The expressionless driver just nodded his head. I did this at least 3 or 4 times. In actual fact the destination was the last stop. But we didn't know. At the bus station the driver nodded at me, finally smiling cheekily. 

In front of me in the bus was an old farmer who continued to engage me to converse with him. But a chicken and a duck how to converse? He carried a small basket with some apples and other fruits, and continued to push some fruits to me. I finally accepted an apple. He also went up to the last stop and at the terminal building I met him again. I gave him a bag with several scones. He was really happy. 

By the way, his apple was terrible, sour like hell.

See death at the Auschwitz Prison Camp, Krakow, Poland

*WS 82: see death at the Auschwitz Prison Camp, Krakow, Poland*

The Auschwitz Prison Camp, 60 km west of Krakow, was the largest Nazi concentration and death camp in the World. It was started in April 1940. Jews, gypsies, criminals and all those considered undesirable were gathered in Germany and the conquered territories and sent to Auschwitz. All children, the old and the weak and most women were immediately executed. Most young men and strong women were retained as prisoners for hard labour. Execution was by gas poisoning at the gas chambers. Auschwitz II had 4 main gas chambers, each could kill about 6,000 people a day. 

On January 27, 1945 the Russian entered Auschwitz and the camp was liberated. But most evidence of the Nazi’s atrocities at the camp has been destroyed by the Germans before they left. The exact numbers of casualty are unknown. It is estimated that 1.0 to 1.3 million Jews were killed, together with at least 100,000 people of other nationalities. 

The combined camp sites is now the Auschwitz Birkenau State Museum, created in 1947, covering 191 hectares. On the museum grounds stand several hundred buildings and ruins, including ruins of the gas chambers and crematoria. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We were on a group tour here in 2015.

The 2nd photo shows the main entrance with the slogan "Work Set You Free", a slogan to mislead the prisoners of course. Exhibits in the museum include many old photos, shoes and artificial limbs once belonged to the victims. The museum holds more than 100,000 pairs of shoes. The last photo is a collapsed crematorium.

At the Osaka Castle (大坂城 ) in Osaka, Japan

*WS 81: at the Osaka Castle (大坂城 ) in Osaka, Japan*

The Osaka Castle is an old castle dated to 1583. It was built during the reign of the feudal warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi.  It became the final stronghold of the Toyotomi clan and later the symbol of Osaka. The older versions have been destroyed in wars and by fires. The one we see today was constructed in 1931 in concrete and heavily renovated in 1997. We spent a morning here in 2018.

The 1st photo shows the perimeter wall with the moat while the 2nd the inner compound. The castle ground is 61,000 sq m in area. The 5th photo shows the 3.5 m long cannon with a 20 cm bore used as a time marker. It was made in 1863 and was fired once everyday at noon to mark the time for the whole of Osaka. It was placed at the entrance of the central castle building.

The central castle building is five stories on the outside and eight stories on the inside.  The height is 58 m. Several floors are used to house the Toyotomi Hideyoshi museum with exhibits of paintings, costume and models of famous battle scenes. And lastly a decorative gold fish on the roof.

The old temples in the Historical Park, Ayutthaya, Thailand

*WS 80: the old temples in the Historical Park, Ayutthaya, Thailand*

The city of Ayutthaya, 64 km north of Bangkok, is a former capital of the Ayutthaya Kingdom which ruled most of present-day Thailand from 1351 to 1767. The Ayutthaya Historical Park is a designated area covering most of the ruins of the old city of Ayutthaya. Part of the park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We were here in 2019 with a group of CLHS classmates, and we visited 2 of the temple complexes within the Historical Park.

The 1st one visited is Wat Chaiwatthanaram (1st 4 photos) built in 1630 by the reigning king. It has a 35-meter high central prang in Khmer style surrounded with four smaller prangs. The central platform is further protected by 8 inter-connected stupas. 1st photo shows part of the layout, and the 2nd photo shows the main prang and a smaller prang. 

The 2nd one is Wat Phra Si Sanphet (last 4 photos) which is the temple of the royal family. The site originally housed the 1st edition of the palace, completed in 1351. In 1448 a new palace was built at another location and the old palace was turned into a royal religious ground. The most famous structure here was a 16 m height gold-covered Buddha statue but it was plundered when the city fell to the Burmese in 1767. The most important buildings still remaining are 3 stupas (or chedis) each containing the ashes of certain kings or royalties. The 5th photo shows 2 of 3 the stupas.

游览中国福建泰宁大金湖 cruising on Dajin Lake in Taining Geopark in Fujian, China

WS 79: 游览中国福建泰宁大金湖 cruising on Dajin Lake in Taining Geopark in Fujian, China

福建泰宁地质公园，是联合国教科文组织认证的世界地质公园，位于福建省西北的泰宁县，面积有493平方公里，其中丹霞地貌面积253平方公里。公园分为五个游览区，其中一个是大金湖，以丹霞地貌景观为主体，花岗岩地貌和人文景观点缀其中。我们在2013年曾到此，乘游船湖上一日游。

游船行走中可观赏岸边的丹霞地貌：峰林、峰柱、方山、峭壁。第三张照片展示的峭壁名为“大赤壁”。我们也上岸参观几个景点。 大金湖景观也包括“岩穴文化”，七十多座寺庙盖在千奇百怪的岩穴里，其中最负盛名的是甘露寺，高八十余米，宽、深各三十多米，庙宇多间，香火鼎盛，第四到第七张照片。

另一处景观称为“丹霞线谷斜一线天”，斜一线天很陡，最窄处要侧身才可过，而且是斜着往上伸展，大家几乎手脚并用身体弯曲才上得去，第八张照片。下来是另一条路，轻轻松松。

The Taining Geopark is a UNESCO global located in Taining County, northwest Fujian Province. It covers an area of 493 sq km of which about 50% is the danxia landform. The park is divided into five tourist themes, one of which is Dajin Lake, with danxia landform landscape as the main attraction. We were here for a day in 2013 taking a cruise on the lake.  

During the cruise, one could see the different danxia landforms on the shore: various types of peaks, square mountains and cliffs. 

We also went ashore to visit several attractions. One of them is the Ganlu Temple, which is a big cave temple complex more than 80 m high up the cliff face, 4th to 7th photos. We also climbed up a low hill within a narrow path between the rocks, last photo.