Our daytrip to Pingyao....

We hopped an 8:30 train...with the wild child (seen on the right climbing on her mother :). Her indulgent grandpa is seated on the left.


We arrived hungry and decided to get some noodles before our walk to the Shuanglin Si. We told them we didn't want meat and she gave us three choices...we picked 2 and let them surprise us with whatever we got :) We could tell one had tofu and one was spicy by looking at the characters, but there was no way to tell they would both come with the essence of mutton :)



Then it was the long walk out to the temple. We saw these new apartment blocks going up and lots of trucks hauling various loads of coal, coal soot, gravel, etc.






A short walk up the tree lined road to the temple for the last 500 meters....


Then we reached a busy little town outside the temple gates...


We then paid our entry fee and were greeted by this many armed statue...


...before we hung a left into the temple proper and met head on with the protectors!


In these photos they come across more as "I'm a disco dancer..." but they were pretty scary up close :)





As I mentioned in my post, we couldn't get photos of the amazing sculptures in the buildings, so this is all exterior stuff. I have put some links to sculpture photos at the bottom of the post for you, because I know you are interested :)

one of the small entryways...


view of the rootops....



there are some old trees around, and monks....


the front of one of the buildings....


We went up to walk on the walls....


...and up into the drum tower (sans drum)


Here are some of the finer details on the buildings and steles around the temple...









We did not use this loo (one of the nicer ones, with dividers :), we used the modern one elsewhere in the temple, but I expect you all are interested to know what the loos look like (just a guess :). Enjoy, as my nose had to brave the strong scent as I snapped this shot! :)


Then it was the long walk back...until we hitched a ride in a passing rickshaw with some other tourists :)


photos that I found elsewhere on the web of some of the inside sculptures...click on them to go to a bigger image.