Exploring Shijiazhuang

After spending nearly 5 months in Shijiazhuang I still havn't really seen much of the city apart from the shopping malls and bars and have not been to any of the recommended sites around the area. One night after moaning about this to Nancy we decided that enough was enough and we'd finally go and see the places recommended by the guide books before my time ran out.

First was Zhaozhou Bridge 安濟橋. This is probably the most famous site in Hebei. Made world famous by its appearance in the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (I think). We got up quite early and made our way across town to the bus station. Nancy had planned every thing to a "T" and all the buses linked together perfectly without any waiting around. The bus we had to catch to the bridge left a little to be desired though!






The bridge itself was very beautiful, it looked especially scenic in the winter as the water below it had frozen and we could walk around underneath it. Zhaozhou bridge is the oldest segmental stone bridge in the world. Also known as "safe crossing bridge" it was constructed in 595 AD during the Sui Dynasty. Despite everyones scepticism, including my own, the original bridge is still what is standing in place today, having survived 10 floods and a 7.2 richter earthquake. For once in China something was genuine!




After the bridge we made the short trip to Ba Lin Chan temple. One of the Most famous buddhist temples in the region and one that most Chinese will try to visit at least once during their life times. The temple was the first one of it's sort that I had seen (believe me there were plenty more to come) and that coupled with Nancy's enthusiam and excitment to be there made it quite interesting. The Monks were cool to see and there was plenty to look around. But it was so cold that we didn't spend any more than an hour or so there and were soon back on the train to the shiz.