Longquan and Shi Jing Temple

Longquin City, Longquan County, Sichuan Province

We walked back to the bus from the Luodai ancient street and caught a bus to Longquin City in hopes of seeing the waning days of the famous Peach Blossom Festival. We had heard of this festival for the past month but only now had decided to attend.

The bus station in Longquan City.

Signs of the Peach Blossom Festival could be seen throughout the town and especially in the town's central park area.

This is not an "art photo." This is not an "art photo." If not, then what?

In the area of the Peach Blossom Festival, we found more kites than people. The day was overcast and threatening rain. For sure this was the last days of the festival as we saw little evidence of peach blossoms. The kites are neat, though!

More kites for sale.

Art Photo - Kites

We saw no peach blossom, so we asked where they were. The people selling the kites pointed the way up a winding path up the local mountain. The rapeseeds were in full blossom so I took advantage and snapped their picture.

Amongst the rapeseed, about half way up the hill, I caught a glimpse of this farm on the right. I just knew it would turn out to be an "art photo."

Art Photo - Rapeseed House

Just a little past the house above we came upon our first peach blossoms.

They were few and far between but peach blossoms they were.

Now the questions is - was it worth the time and effort to come here?

Art Photo - Peach Blossom

Neither Sunee nor I were disappointed in the small number of actual peach blossoms we encountered. We were out and traveling again. Sunee began to try to find out what else was of interest in the area. One of the vendors where we had eaten a quick lunch told us about a temple we could travel to by bus. Great idea. We immediately walked about 2 kilometers along the now empty Peach Blossom Festival road to the main highway to catch a bus to our next destination - Shi Jing Temple.

Shi Jing Temple, Longquan County

The trip to Shi Jing Temple took two hours through some pretty obvious peach blossom country. Check out the pictures from the trip.

A sign telling us we are going in the right direction.

Look at all the peach blossoms still available for viewing.

Our bus stopped across the street from this magnificent temple and we were anxious to visit what appeared to be a very busy temple.

Arriving to the area of the temple, I began to take pictures immediately in front of the temple. Here are some vendors selling various products from the local area.

Sales lady with gourds right outside the entrance to the temple. Sunee wanted some but waited until we visited the temple.

The impressive entrance to the obviously real and working Buddhist temple.

Inside entrance to the first courtyard.

A panoramic view of the main temple immediately in back of the first courtyard. According to what I could find out later, this temple along with the Wenshu Temple in Chengdu are the best examples of this specific style of temples. Try to find this temple on the internet and one only gets two or three hits that even mention it. Fabulously beautiful and well worth the two hour trip.

This is an active Buddhist temple. We were not charged to visit it.

Art Photo - Good Luck

One of the many Buddhas scattered around the temple and housed in beautiful buildings.

Two cute door carvings I could not resist.

Carvings from one of the fence sections inside the first courtyard.

First courtyard.

Halfway up the mountain inside the temple complex, I took this really great photo. Love the green contrasting with the red.

Art Photo - Visitor in Green

A temple guard dog along a brilliant red fence separating the levels of the temple. The temple is set on a mountain slope among beautiful trees. Very natural and very beautiful.

Art Photo - Temple Guard

Sunee took some time out from admiring the temple to take some movies. These are the first movies we took since getting our video camera repaired in Thailand. Nice to have it back in action.

Small temple on the upper slopes of the mountain. Again, notice this is an active, working Buddhist temple.

Art Photo - Temple Walk

This thing almost hit me on the head as I was taking picture of the second or third building in the temple complex. Is it an Art Photo?

Art Photo - Open Door

These three "art photos" are some of the best I took at the temple complex. I saw this lady coming down the path and took several pictures of her going through the door and heading off to my right.


This pagoda acted as the entrance to another level of the temple. The temple was spacious and laid out in the most beautiful way. Interesting how those ancient Chinese had a near perfect grasp of beauty and function.

We met these college students as we wandered around the temple grounds. Very friendly and very active.

This structure was built over a beautiful expanse of water. It always has amazed me how the ancients combined water with the buildings and then set the whole thing into a natural surrounding as it everything fit together naturally.

Art Photo - A Quiet Place

Art Photo - Red Corner

This is a courtyard off to the left of the second level of temples. Nice size and location made Sunee thing may be the right size for our own future Siheyuan or Chinese courtyard.

Active Buddhists could be seen throughout the temple complex.

So this is a monastery. I have to remember to look up the difference between a temple and a monastery in Chinese.

Another Buddha housed in a small building up the side of the mountain.

Ya gotta love Buddhist Temple designs. They are very unique in the world of architecture.

What an exciting trip this turned out to be. Luodai was wonderful but very commercial. This temple, on the contrary, was wonderful and not commercial. We loved this temple. But, unfortunately, it was time to go back to Luodai, collect our stuff and return Chengdu and then to our mountain paradise - Emei.

Back To Chengdu

The trip back to Chengdu was uneventful. We got off the bus at a place we did not recognize but there were pictures . . .

The location of our bus stop revealed this interesting sculpture.

We got a taxi back to SW Jiaotong University where we checked into our hotel and went out for a snack. This lady provided us the said snack - a genuine Sichuan version of food.

I call it glue, Sunee likes it.

This snack was mine - a sweet crepe-like delight full of chocolate. I loved it.