Lock Your Love - The "Bridge Of Love" Photos

Interesting News from Vrnjacka Banja (Town in Central Serbia) : One history board, next to little bridge. On railing of the bridge thousands of padlocks with names on them. We found that bridge is called "Bridge of Love". We also learn that girls from Serbia wanting to preserve their love, write their names and those of their loved ones on padlocks, and tie them to the bridge fence, and symbolically throw the keys into the river..



From the Bridge of love History Board



“At the dawn of the First World War, while the war was not even suspected yet, a schoolmistress Nada and a Serbian officer Relja started having deep feelings for each other. They fell in love and made a commitment to each other. It was a love widely talked about, attracting the attention of all the people living at Vrnjacka Banja Spa. But the war did break out with all the horrors it entails. Relja went off to war fought in Greece. He left never to return on account of a beautiful Greek woman he had fallen in love with, and therefore broke up the engagement to Nada. The legend does not say anything about his further fate, whereas, on the other hand, every inhabitant of Vrnjacka Banja spa is familiar with Nada’s destiny. Owing to overwhelming sorrow she faded away day after day and finally died, young and miserable. Upset by Nada’s destiny, girls, wishing to keep their own romances, started writing down their names along with the names of their lovers on padlocks that they bound to the railing of the bridge which used to be the favorite meeting place of Nada and Relja. Afterward the keys were symbolically thrown into the river. New wars and sufferings came up. The story fell into oblivion, and the girl’s custom to “bind” their love became uncustomary. It had been case until Desanka Maksimovic, according to the stories of old residents of Vrnjacka Banja spa, became acquainted with this tragic story. Inspired by it she wrote down one of her most beautiful love poems “A Prayer for Love”, (Molitva za ljubav). Although we tend to forget things, this story remains to be unforgotten, and in order to prolong its existence the young couples kept on with the tradition of “binding” their love and it bridge itself got the name “THE BRIDGE OF LOVE”.”

World Oldest Romanian Mother - At the Age 67, Romanian Women Give Birth

A 67-year-old Romanian has become the oldest woman to give birth, fuelling an ethical, medical and religious debate about fertility treatment. Adriana Iliescu gave birth to a daughter who weighed 1.4 kilograms and was delivered by caesarean section after a twin embryo died in the womb.





Sunday's birth came six weeks before the university professor was due to have the child. She started fertility treatment at the age of 58. Mrs Iliescu finally conceived last May, but she and her doctors kept the news secret until she gave an interview to a Romanian TV station in December announcing she was pregnant with twin girls. The revelation prompted outrage in some quarters and celebration in others.





The mother-to-be made an emotional defence. While critics complained she would be too old to watch her children grow up, she insisted that her family had a history of longevity. At her Bucharest hospital, doctors said the surviving infant was in intensive care but breathing independently. "The mother is doing well," a spokesman said. "She is saying she has been given a new lease of life."





The Romanian Orthodox Church gave the birth its blessing, but some doctors have been outraged. The head of Romania's medical ethics board said such a controversial procedure should have been debated before conception. The previous oldest woman to give birth had a son 10 years ago when she was 62.

Flexible Woman - World's Most Flexible Women Photos Collection

The Hanging Temple Pics - Shanxi Province in China

The Hanging Temple is located on the crag of Jinlongkou west cliff at the foot of Hengshan Mountain, 5 kilometers to the south from Hunyuan County, Shanxi Province.





Hengshan Mountain is known as the North Mountain of the Five Sacred Mountains in China. The Hanging Temple was built on the Jinlong Valley at the foot of Hengshan Mountain, which is 80 kilometers away from Datong City. According to the History of Hengshan Mountain, the Hanging Temple was first built at the end of the Northern Wei Dynasty (about the sixth century). It was said to be built by a monk named Liao Ran in the Northern Wei Dynasty. It has a history of more than 1,400 years. After many times of repairs, the Hanging Temple had a large scale, and became a rare high altitude building in China, known as a high building on cliff.







All buildings in the temple were hung on the crag at the slope of Hengshan Mountain. The buildings stand vertical to the cliff, and the peak of the cliff seems upside down. Seen from upwards, the whole building seems that it just sticks to the cliff. Facing south to Hengshan Mountain, the temple is under the crags and on the cloughs, with red walls and gray tiles. Strew at random and spread in the air, it just like a flying little phoenix. The buildings are arrayed in a line from the south of the cliff to the north, and heightened gradually like a dragon pronating on the cliff. More than forty halls, rooms and pavilions in the temple are divided to three groups. Passing through the temple gate, one can reach a two-storeyed building. As the stele pavilions and the gate towers, two tall buildings stand face to face in the yard. There are two bell and drum towers on both sides of the temple gate, and they are square side pavilions.











The principal building among them is the Sanguan Hall, a place to offer sacrifice to Taoism. Statues in the hall are vivid, with undecorated faces, black eyebrows and swaying gussets. The principal building in the central party is the Sansheng Hall, which enshrines sitting Buddha statues with disciples standing submissively on the sides. The last building complex is mainly the Sanjiao Hall, the highest one in the temple, and has a three-eave gable and hip roof with nine ridges. Statues of Confucius, Laozi (a scholar in ancient China) and Sakyamuni the founders of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism respectively, are enshrined in the hall. Different cultures directly encounter one another here. This building is a perfect combination of religion and culture of Chinese feudal society. The statue of Sakyamuni stands in the middle, that of Laozi on the right and Confucius on the left, with different expressions. Displaying the innermost being of three founders of different doctrines, techniques of statuaries are really exquisite and are acclaimed as the peak of perfection.













The Hanging Temple was designed skillfully and constructed audaciously. The method is to chisel a horizontal hole in the cliff, and then put a beam through the hole out of the cliff, at last put board and pillars on the beam to build various beam frames and roofs. Balusters are set around all the buildings outside the cliff. Looking from the top of the mountain, visitors can see some impending wooden poles under the buildings that are far from the cliff. These wooden poles are set to protect the buildings. The temple was arranged in random from north to south, with a bluff inside and devious plank roads built along the face of the cliff. Beam frames are harmonious up and down, and balusters are connected to each other, with appropriate density, like one integrated mass. Seen from the buildings, it looks as if facing an abyss; seen from the bottom of the valley, the cliff is lofty like a rainbow; seen from the opposite side over the valley, it looks like a young flying phoenix on the cliff. It is just like what the inscription on the cliff of plank roads reads, People are more creative than nature.

There are all sorts of inscriptions, poems and another 78 statues of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism made of copper, iron, clay and stone, which are valuable cultural craftworks.