jiayan

As I mentioned in my last post, this weekend CIEE took us to Henan. Henan is located near the southern part of Yellow River, hence the name 河 (river) 南 (south). According to the information package CIEE provided, Henan has a population of 92,560,000 people, with ethnic groups of Han, Hui, Manchu, and Mongolian.

For transportation, we took an overnight train (9 hours!) from Beijing to Zhengzhou, Henan – we left on Friday night and arrived on Saturday morning. After eating breakfast and freshening up, we took a bus to Shaolin Temple, the most famous Buddhist temple in China. One of the more notable aspects of Shaolin Temple is its beauty, as it is in proximity of the Songshan Mountain. Unfortunately, it is also a very tourist-driven location; the entrance of the Shaolin Temple is so over-saturated with souvenir shops, that it takes away from the cultural significance.

One of the several scenic pictures I took..

Aiden and Songshan Mountain in the back