Korean Job Discussion Forums

oilers4ever · Joined: 04 Oct 2006 Location: Busan

Hi.
Going to Shanghai soon and was wondering if it would be worth taking a jouney outside of Shanghai to see that place?
Is it a spectacular place to actually go out of your way to see, or not really worth it considering the travel involved? Thx

Kung-fu - The Legend Continues!!! Very Happy

buster brown · Joined: 26 Aug 2005 Location: Seoul

If you're going to Henan from Shanghai, why not go on to Xian and see the real sites? I've been to the Shaolin Temple and it wasn't that memorable. If there were some special demonstrations that were going on and if you're really into WuShu, then you wouldn't want to miss it. However, I rank it only slightly higher than any random Buddhist temple visit. If you're taking the train from Shanghai through Henan, go to LuoYang and then onto Xian.

BTW, you realize that's a pretty far distance away from Shanghai, right?

acornrevolution · Joined: 16 Jul 2007 Location: Pusan, SK

read American Shaolin by Matthew Polly and find out

itaewonguy · Joined: 25 Mar 2003

my friend stayed there over night on one of their tour things, met a couple korean kids who live their full time hahahahaa

anyway.. my friend showed me video footage of him being there, he saw demonstrations and trained for a day with them.. he loved it..
if its your thing, then you should do it..

pugwall · Joined: 22 Oct 2006

If you goto Shaolin use Luoyang as your base. There are a couple of hostels in Luoyang and it used to be the capital of China. Luoyang is the home of the Longmen caves which are excellent and one of the biggest toursit sites in Eastern China. You can get a public bus to the Longmen caves and their are regular buses to Shaolin Si from the station. You should be able to get a train from Shangers to Luoyang.

Mary-Jane · Joined: 22 Mar 2006

I was disappointed with the place. Nice area, if you haven't had your fill of temples and pine trees, but... The monks run half hour shows about every hour, if you think about the frequency of shows per day it's unsurprising that the shows are nice but pretty generic.

If you could arrange to stay over and train there, maybe it'd be worth it. Be careful about booking any tours or tickets. In Luoyang I tried my hardest to buy a simple bus ticket, but I ended up inadvertently booking myself into a tour with a group of Chinese people. I was taken to about 3 smaller temples before we got to the Shaolin temple, when I didn't have much time anyway, and the guide spoke zero English.