Big Wild Goose Pagoda (Dayan Ta)

As the symbol of the old-line Xian, Big Wild Goose Pagoda is a well-preserved ancient building and a holy place for Buddhists. It is located in the southern suburb of Xian City, about 4 kilometers (2.49 miles) from the downtown of the city. Standing in the Da Ci'en Temple complex, it attracts numerous visitors for its fame in the Buddhist religion, its simple but appealing style of construction, and its new square in front of the temple. It is rated as a National Key Cultural Relic Preserve as well as an AAAA Tourist Attraction.

This attraction can be divided into three parts: the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, the Da Ci'en Temple, and the North Square of Big Wild Goose Pagoda.

Big Wild Goose Pagoda

Originally built in 652 during the reign of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), it functioned to collect Buddhist materials that were taken from India by the hierarch Xuanzang.

Xuanzang started off from Chang'an (the ancient Xian), along the Silk Road and through deserts, finally arriving in India, the cradle of Buddhism. Enduring 17 years and traversing 100 countries, he obtained Buddha figures, 657 kinds of sutras, and several Buddha relics. Having gotten the permission of Emperor Gaozong (628-683), Xuanzang, as the first abbot of Da Ci'en Temple, supervised the building of a pagoda inside it. With the support of royalty, he asked 50 hierarchs into the temple to translate Sanskrit in sutras into Chinese, totaling 1,335 volumes, which heralded a new era in the history of translation. Based on the journey to India, he also wrote a book entitled 'Pilgrimage to the West' in the Tang Dynasty, to which scholars attached great importance.

First built to a height of 60 meters (197 feet) with five stories, it is now 64.5 meters (211.6 feet) high with an additional two stories. It was said that after that addition came the saying-'Saving a life exceeds building a seven-storied pagoda'. Externally it looks like a square cone, simple but grand and it is a masterpiece of Buddhist construction. Built of brick, its structure is very firm. Inside the pagoda, stairs twist up so that visitors can climb and overlook the panorama of Xian City from the arch-shaped doors on four sides of each storey. On the walls are engraved fine statues of Buddha by the renowned artist Yan Liben of the Tang Dynasty. Steles by noted calligraphers also grace the pagoda.

As for the reason why it is called Big Wild Goose Pagoda, there is a legend. According to ancient stories of Buddhists, there were two branches, for one of which eating meat was not a taboo. One day, they couldn't find meat to buy. Upon seeing a group of big wild geese flying by, a monk said to himself: 'Today we have no meat. I hope the merciful Bodhisattva will give us some.' At that very moment, the leading wild goose broke its wings and fell to the ground. All the monks were startled and believed that Bodhisattva showed his spirit to order them to be more pious. They established a pagoda where the wild goose fell and stopped eating meat. Hence it got the name 'Big Wild Goose Pagoda'.

Da Ci'en Temple

Da Ci'en Temple is the home of Big Wild Goose Pagoda. In 648, to commemorate the dead virtuous queen, royalty ordered the building of a temple named 'Ci'en' (Mercy and Kindness), for which the status and scale far exceeded all others. Today, with an area of 32,314 square meters (38,648.5 square yards), one seventh of the original area, it still retains its grandeur.

Before the temple, there stands a statue of hierarch Xuanzang, the meritorious hierarch. Walking on and across a small bridge, visitors will see the gates of the temple. With guarding lions, the temple seems stately for lions were said to function as talismans.

Entering the temple you will see two buildings-Bell Tower in the east and Drum Tower in the west. Inside the Bell Tower hangs an iron bell 15 tons (14.76 gross tons) in weight. It was molded in 1548 in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Along the central axis are arranged the Hall of Mahavira, Sermon Hall, Big Wild Goose Pagoda, and the Hall of Xuanzang Sanzang. In the Hall of Mahavira are three carved statues of Sakyamuni, and 18 arhats as well as Xuanzang. The Sermon Hall is where Buddhist disciples would listen to a sermon. A bronze statue of Amitabha is dedicated and a Buddha statue is collected by Xuanzang as oblation. The Hall of Xuanzang Sanzang is north of Big Wild Goose Pagoda. In this hall are Xuanzang's relic and a bronze statue of a seated Xuanzang. The inner wall is chiseled with murals depicting this hierarch's story. Renowned as the contemporary Dunhuang Buddhist storehouse praised by UNESCO, it is the biggest memorial of Xuanzang.

North Square of Big Wild Goose Pagoda

Surrounding Big Wild Goose Pagoda, the scenery is also quite charming, especially the square north of the Da Ci'en Temple. Covering about 110,000 square meters (131563 square yards) plus 20,000 square meters (23920.6 square yards) of water area, it holds many records: in Asia, it is the biggest Tang-culture square, the biggest fountain and waterscape square, and the largest-scale sculptures area. In the world, it has the most benches, the longest light-belt, and the largest-scale acoustic complex.

The entire square is composed of waterscape fountains, a cultural square, gardens and tourist paths. There you can taste real Chinese culture and traditions and fully enjoy the truly attractive views. With reliefs on the theme of the prosperous Tang Dynasty, 200-meter-long (656-foot-long) sculpture groups, 8 groups of sculpted figures, 40 relievos on the land, and 22 styles of musical fountains, it has become a must-see when you visit Big Wild Goose Pagoda.

Cool code for a browser.

Try to copy following and paste it into your addresbar in a browser while you are browse a pages with some images in it. You will know how cool a Javascript can work. (Not work for some pages with special code to control the script).

javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.images; DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5; DIS.top=Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5}R++}setInterval('A()',5); void(0)

Free smartphone, PDA, PC eBook reader.

Mobipocket official site

Find this free pocket eBook reader for my N-gage yesterday. Very nice application, support many format, if has release to about all the devices, on PC, smartphone or PDA,, check for the suitable version version for your device. You also can download some formatted free ebooks from that official site. Enjoy it.

Animation film A Scanner Darkly

A Scanner Darkly was filmed digitally using the Panasonic AG-DVX100 and then animated with Rotoshop, a proprietary graphics editing program created by Bob Sabiston. Rotoshop uses an animation technique called interpolated rotoscope, which was previously used in Linklater's film Waking Life. Linklater discussed the ideas and inspiration behind his use of rotoscoping in a UK documentary about him in 2004, linking it to his personal experiences of lucid dreaming. Rotoscoping in traditional cell animation originally involved tracing over film frame-by-frame. This is similar in some respects to the rotoscope style of filmmaker Ralph Bakshi. Rotoshop animation, however, makes use of vector keyframes, and interpolates the in-between frames automatically. Sabiston and his team initially managed this unprecedented animation pipeline, but at the time of his departure, art direction in the studio was still not established and the film's production process was extended well past its initial September 2005 release date target. Each minute of animation required 500 hours of work.

anasonic AG-DVX100

Rotoshop Rotoscope

Leshan Giant Buddha

Leshan Giant Buddha is an enormous statue carved into the cliff side of Lingyun Mountain. The Buddha is over 71 meters (230ft) tall with 28 meter (92ft) wide shoulders and a 15 meter (49ft) high head. More than 100 people can sit between the Buddha's feet.



The carving of this massive statue commenced in 713AD during the Tang dynasty and was only completed in 803AD. The Buddha overlooks the confluence of the Min, Qingyi and Dadu rivers just east of Leshan and is reputed to be the largest carved stone Buddha in the world. A local saying explains, "The mountain is a Buddha, the Buddha is a mountain".


In December,1996 The Mount Emei and the Giant Buddha of Leshan was listed in the Chronology of Recognition of World Heritages in China.

An old map from China

This is an old town map from China in 1807, the town named Zhongbu during that time is name Huangling now. It is supposed to be the site of the tomb of the Yelloe Emperor Xuan Yuan Huang Di, who reigned over 5,000 years ago. Huang Di is known as the ancestor of Chinese. Many inventions have been credited to Huang including silkworm cultivation, weaving, brick building, boats, carts and musical instruments.

Every year at Qing Ming festival, there will hold a big memorial ceremony in this town to memorize the ancestor of Chinese, Chinese around the world attend the ceremony during that time. Besides, it is also a place to attact lots of tourists around year for its long history and culture.

Huangling is located 264km to the northeast of Xi'an ( where the world famous Terracotta Warriors is located).

A button made by Gimp.

Made a plastic button using Gimp, is it cool?

Stomach ache during the night

It was a terrible night when I waked up by a sudden pain from the stomach 2 days ago. It was about 3 AM in the morning of 03.11.2006, I went to tiolet thinking it would be released after a while, but the pain getting harder as I site there. After about 10 mins, it got unbearble, like a sharp knife across the bellly, I sweated all over by colic from the belly. I had to call my wife, she suggested to call the ambulance, I had to agree since the colic almost drived me fall in a faint. It costed about 10 min for the ambulance comes. I feel a little bit better, but still not totally released. We then went to the hospital and did blood test and some other checks. But I did not get any treatment from 4:00 to 6:30. It was a terrible night in the hospital, I sited in the waiting room all the time. It is about 7:00, when the real doctor came and give me a very simple look and told me to visit my family doctor later, then sent me away.
This was the worst condition in the hospital in my life, I can not understand this situation, why they did not do some simple treatment on me in that two hours, I can not image this if there are serious condition which may cause terrible result. What are they waiting for? do they really care about the patient's feeling?
I will never call the ambulance again, never visit the hospital, if the pain leases just a little bit.

Loituma

Extension (add-ons) installed for my Firefox.

With the new Firefox 2, some extension for 1.X become incompatible. The extension, named add-ons now, I'm using are list here.

• Adblock, definitly the most used extension for all mozilla products. Even as the default add-on in the new Firefox release.
• Flashgot, nice tools to these who use some download softwares rather than the default download function of the browser, it is a everyday tool for most of internet user.
• Download Statusbar, not as the default download manager, which will always open a new windows to manage the download procedure. But remember to reopen the download manager to clean the download history, this can prevent the system usage of the browser.
• Forecastfox, include the whether broadcast in you browser statusbar.
• Cacheviewer, this add-on gives you the possibility to save some files in your cache to your harddisk, for example the online flash animations.
• Stumble!, add-on to share the interesting web pages with the similar interests around the world.
• Jeteye, save your favorite pages, information, even notes to a the jeteye server. You can then access it anywhere with the net.
• New Tab Button on Tab Bar 2.0. It is a little add-on, but works fine as it is named.
• Flashblock, this make the flash embeded in the pages as a button, works fine is quiet surrounding, save some times if you only care about the text information.

Trees in the National Park

 
 
  

Sachsen Schweitz National Park

  

Dresden

  

Sachsen Schweitz

 

A trip to Sachsen Schweitz during heavy rain. I temperature was less than 10 when we went back the train station. 

Sachsen Schweitz

  

Sachsen Schweitz

  
During last weekend (27.Oct.2006), we visited Dresden and its surrounding. Before the visiting, I found a nice family hotel near Pirna, which is named as "the gate to Sachsen Schweitz". When we got there at 19 PM, it was already dark. Fortunately, the nice host of that family hotel picked we up from the local train station. The small town named as Obervogelgesang, which means the higher bird song. That is a nice name. The house is located in the canyon where Elbe river go through.