Temple of the Six Banyan Trees

This morning we visited the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees, an ancient Buddhist Temple which was originally call the Baozhuangyan Temple until its name was changed with a writer Su Shi wrote about 6 Banyan trees he saw there.

The original temple and pagoda was built during the Liang Dynasty around 537 AD, it burned down, so they built another during the Northern Song Dynasty around 1097 AD (this is when the named was changed), that one burned down and most of the current structures were rebuilt during the Ming Dynasty in 1373 AD.  The grounds were in disrepair and the pagoda and structures were restored in the late 1890's to 1900.

The pagoda is called the "Flowery Pagoda" because they say the upturned ends of the roofs make it look like flower petals.

Some adoptive families take their children into the temple and have them blessed, however since we are Christians we opted not to have our children blessed and remained outside the temples and took some photos looking inside from the doorways.

We really loved the attention to detail in the architecture, stonework, woodcarvings, and gardens as well as the historical background of the area.

Lunch back in the room. (soup & crackers)

Cameron teaching Lauren animal names
in English using pictures on his laptop.
Lauren is doing great & even trying to teach
Cameron some of the names in Chinese (Mandarin/Shanghainese)