Entranceway

The front gate. Admission used to be free back in the late 90's if they knew that you were training at the temple. Now, it's very difficult to get in for free. Knowing some of the elder monks makes it easy to avoid the 100 Yuan payment



Just inside the front gate is a bilateral row of upright dedication stones, mostly from Asian countries. There are one or two from American martial arts organizations. Some of these stones are fairly old, some are from the recent decade or two. The walkway here, as the Temple itself, runs south to north. We're facing north here in this photo, as we head up into the Temple.



A view of the Bell Tower (recently refurbished 1999) in the distance, from the same vantage point. Next stop (coming soon) is over this wall to the right, where the Bamboo garden is, and a "museum" of some famous, important, and ancient stone writings are kept. The Bell Tower, being one of the buildings in the "front" of the Temple, was completely destroyed in the 1928 fires, and has just recently been rebuilt according to original specifications, using, fairly original construction methods.



A view to the west, in the distance is the Drum Tower, also recently refurbished. It too was completely destroyed by fire in 1928, and has been rebuilt according to original specs. It has been said, that the bell and the drum in these two towers can be heard for distances of over thirty miles. Over this wall to the left, is the "museum" of history of the Shaolin Temple Warrior monks (viewed towards the end of this "tour").

 Shaolin Temple Photos

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