Longmen Grottoes

Another five day weekend (have to love these Chinese National Holidays, in this case May Day) and it's time to travel again.  This time, Jeff O, was visiting and so we wanted to go to Xi'an to see the famed Terracotta warriors, where we would meet up with Marlene, Eleni and Kendra.  But I decided that should first head to the city of Luoyang, in western Henan province. The trip started out with a mistake and some torture.  First, the mistake was that I forgot to look at the train tickets and had the cab take us to Beijing Railway Station instead of Beijing West Railway station.  Being the early bird that I am, we were lucky to find a cab to drive us across town to make our train in time. The torture? I had intended to purchase a sleeper ticket, but wasn't able to obtain one. (Train tickets can be purchased 18 days in advance and I got to the ticket office 16 days in advance) Instead, I thought it would be fine to get a seat, thinking it was like a plane seat, for the overnight train ride of eight hours. Jeff and I got to our seats.....and then were subjected to the fact that the train was standing room only. People in the aisles, sitting on the floor by the bathroom. Smoking everywhere, bags in the aisle. It was miserable. I've learned my lesson!! No overnight slow trains without making sure we have an actual bed. Chalk it up to China lessons.  And thanks to Jeff for being a trooper and not making me feel TOO bad about making him suffer.

The Longmen Grottoes span both sides of the Yi River south of the town of Luoyang.  I took all pictures on this trip with my iPhone camera.  We'll see about quality.  And this is my first attempt at using the Panorama function on the camera.

One thing that one notices prominently is the amount of defacing, looting and weathering that has occurred here at the Longmen Grottoes.

The Middle Binyang Cave is known for its Lotus Flower on the Ceiling.

As we move south along the river.....we come to the large Fengshan Grotto.  You can see the scale from across the river.

You walk up and see the Vairocana Buddha.  Known as China's Mona Lisa.  The more natural expression is an artistic development from the Yungang Grottoes seen up in Datong, which were carved about a century earlier.

It's these two guys, however, that are the highlight.  The show movement and naturalistic poses (hello Art History terminology).  These guys are masterpieces of Tang Dynasty art.

This guy is crushing an evil spirit.

On the facing wall, there were two other buddhas (and Jeff in the bottom corner there) but have been defaced and looted.