Asian Adventure: Cathay Pacific B777-300ER Business Class San Francisco to Hong Kong
Asian Adventure: Cathay Pacific Lounge Review: The Cabin at HKG
Asian Adventure: Cathay Dragon A330-300 Business Class Hong Kong to Beijing
Asian Adventure: Regent Beijing Hotel
Asian Adventure: Beijing - Dongcheng District
Asian Adventure: Beijing - The Great Wall
Asian Adventure: Beijing - Run-ze Jade Garden
Asian Adventure: Beijing - The Sacred Way of the Ming Tombs
Asian Adventure: Beijing - The Legend of Kung Fu
Asian Adventure: Beijing - Tiananmen Square
Asian Adventure: Beijing - The Forbidden City
Asian Adventure: Beijing - Hutong Tour via Rickshaw, Tea Tasting, Flying to Xi’an
Asian Adventure: Hotel Shangri-La Xi’an
Asian Adventure: Xi’an - Qing Dynasty Terra Cotta Warriors
Asian Adventure: Xi’an - Tang Dynasty Dinner and Show
Asian Adventure: Xi’an Wrap-Up, Flying to Lhasa, Lhasa Home Visit
Asian Adventure: Shangri-La Hotel Lhasa
Asian Adventure: Lhasa - Jokhang Temple and Barkhor Market
Asian Adventure: Lhasa - Canggu Nunnery and Sera Monastery
Asian Adventure: Lhasa - Potala Palace
Asian Adventure: Leaving Lhasa and Flying to Chongqing
Asian Adventure: Viking Emerald
Asian Adventure: Shibaozhai Temple
Asian Adventure: Cruising the Three Gorges
Asian Adventure: Three Gorges Dam
Asian Adventure: Jingzhou City Walls Tour
Asian Adventure: Wuhan - Hubei Bells Performance and Provincial Museum
Asian Adventure: Shanghai - Shanghai Museum
Asian Adventure: Fairmont Peace Hotel, Shanghai
Asian Adventure: Shanghai - Old Shanghai and Yuyan Gardens
Asian Adventure: The New Otani Tokyo Hotel
Asian Adventure: Tokyo - City Tour
Asian Adventure: Mt. Fuji and Hakone Tour Returning by Shinkansen
Asian Adventure: ANA Suites Lounge Review, Tokyo Narita
Asian Adventure: All Nippon Airways B777-300ER First Class Tokyo Narita to Houston
After our first full (soggy) day of the tour, there was an optional evening excursion after dinner. The Legend of Kung Fu is apparently quite the tourist attraction as it has its own permanent theater, signs in English, the salespeople in the lobby spoke pretty good English and the entire performance was narrated by an English recording.
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| Red Theatre, home of the Legend of Kung Fu |
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| This young monk sat in the lobby and every so often he'd strike his drum |
There were a couple of women in the show but, if I understood correctly, all the male participants were monks in various stages of training, even the young boys. Before the show began, one of the training masters put his young charges through their paces. My camera couldn't effectively capture how they could kick their legs up as high as their heads or watch them do all kinds of handsprings on the hard, concrete floor.
A young boy wants to become a Kung Fu master and he asks his grandfather what the Kung Fu life is like. The grandfather tells a tale of one of the greatest masters of all times and, at the end, it is revealed to be his own life story.
The performers were amazing athletes and I read that their average age is only 17. It's hard to tell them apart as they all have shaved heads and eerily-shaped eyebrows.
This young man was the star of the show. He places these three spear tips in the hollow of his throat and the other performers hold the ends steady as he forces the spears to bend into a U-shape.
Then he balanced his whole body on the center tip of this trident.
For his last activity he lay on a bed of nails. A double-sided board of nails was then laid on top of him and another performer on top of that. A slab of concrete topped off the stack - and then a third performer broke the concrete with a sledgehammer! From what we could see in the audience there were no visible scars from all the nails. Just incredible!
It is quite an amazing show.
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