The infamous bell tower...an event Claire still hasn't let me live down!
There was a stern gentleman at the door to the bell tower who was collecting 10RMB from each visitor to go to the top of the tower. For reasons unknown to us (maybe because we showed him our tickets from the front gate and he wasn't up for communicating to us that we had to pay more), he let the two Americans and one Canadian up for free.
Nancy took this shot looking up from the base of the bell tower.
Good one, Nancy!
Inside the tower was a desk where Chinese calligraphy was written.
Love the pink sunglasses...so out of place!
A view from the top looking out over the Taoist Temple.
Nancy and Claire being goofy...
While at the top of the tower, I really wanted to ring the bell, but wasn't quite sure of the rules, so decided to be a good girl and settle for a fake picture of me doing so. Until...
...a young man and his daughter came up and started ringing away. They asked me to take a picture of them while ringing the bell together, so afterward I decided what the heck...
...I'm going to ring it too!! Claire and Nancy had already made their way back down, so my new bell-ringing friends snapped my picture while I rang away!
On my fourth ring, a very stern yell came booming up from the man below. It appeared that he was not a happy camper about my number of rings, so I quickly stopped at four. Along with my two new friends, I could hear Nancy and Claire, bellowing with laughter from below! Claire then came up with all kinds of reasons why it's extremely bad to ring the bell four times and upset the bell master: it's bad luck, four must mean death, etc! After that, each moment something went wrong during our trip (and there were quite a few!), Claire would remind me that it must be because of "those four rings!"
Someday I'll find out what this sign says and know what four rings really means....
Until then, I'll stick to three!
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