11/17/2005 12:06:00 AM|||The Zen Master|||The title of this post is also the official name of one of the enumerated "Ten Views of West Lake" that appear in every Chinese-published English-language guidebook to this city currently in print. Most of the views (which are accompanied by "Ten New Views of West Lake") don't seem that special, but, as a fan of "evening glow," I figured it couldn't hurt to try to time my first visit to the Leifeng Pagoda on the southwest shore of the lake to coincide with that golden time of day. As these photos show, it probably wasn't a bad decision. Leifeng Pagoda was originally built to house what the posted signs called "relics of Sakyamuni," or Buddhist holy objects of some kind, but it was destroyed in the 1920s. The current structure, which stands seven pagoda-storeys high on the summit of a hill, was built of steel over the ruins in 2001. What makes it hysterical, though, is the fact that you can go from the level of the lake to the top of the tower without climbing more than ten or fifteen steps--the rest of the journey is made by a combination of two escalators and two elevators. That was great for all the elderly tourists I ran into at the top, but seems strange after climbing so many stairs at other ancient towers, both in China and around the world. I had not expected to rest my weary feet by getting to the top of a pagoda.|||113215717962622871|||Leifeng Pagoda in Evening Glow
