Xi An + Yun Cheng (西安+运城) Trip (27/5/09-31/5/09) - Part 2

Continuation from the previous post...

On that evening after our visit to Qin Terracotta Army, we took the tourist bus No. 1 to the train station, and from there, we took a bus to Yun Cheng 运城, 4 hours journey from Xi An.

运城 Yun Cheng is located at the Shan1 Xi1 province 山西,the neighbouring province of Shan3 Xi1 陕西. Xi An is in Shan3 Xi1 province.

The Yun Cheng trip is in conjuction with Chai Ching's mission to visit her relatives, and we just escorting her. Hehe. The friendliness and hospitality from her relatives earn multiple thumbs up!!


Our first breakfast in Yun Cheng

Her uncle brought us to China's largest Temple of Guan Gong 关帝庙 in China. Guan Gong is one of the famous icon in the Romance of Three Kingdom 三国演义.



In Yun Cheng, people worship and pray Guan Gong the most. They even have a gigantic statue of Guan Gong at a roundabout in the town centre.



If you watch The Red Cliff 赤壁 starring Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro etc, Guan Gong is the one with the darkest face and long super huge spear.

As you enter the temple, you will find yourselves surrounding with the world of ancient structures...


...with ancient signboard



...with ancient memorial arch


...with ancient wall board of praise and poem


...with feng shui design of inner building

We show our respect by praying. Hehe.

The incense is hard to flame.

Since this is a Guan Gong's Temple, it MUST equipped with his well-known weapon 青龙偃月刀. In fact, not just one, there is a few of them.







With weapons this huge, they need a huge grindstone.


THIS size of grindstone

Can you see what does the shape of the tree on the building look like?



Yup, it's dragon.

It's not human made etc. It is made naturally by the creative mother nature =) How cool is that?

Anyway, a funny event about this tree happened. To enter the garden, we have to walk across a door frame as photo below, and above the door frame is a picture.

When a tour guide was explaining about the tree, we stood quite behind while Ching stood most front so she managed to listen to the explanation. When she explained to us while pointing at the tree, but I thought she was talking about the picture. So I was like:"Where does it show dragon in that picture???" I thought I was alone, but I'm not, because Ju and Wing thought so too. Haha!

The temple has individual pavilion for each special items, such as the arch, the giant bell, the sword(?) etc etc ... Cool~







After that, we had a nice lunch at a hotel in the town. The suit room is really cozy! Hehe.

On the evening, uncle brought us to another famous trademark in Yun Cheng - 舜帝陵 Tomb of Shun Ti.



Shun Ti is an Emperor who is famous of his filial, although he has a very bad father and stepmother. He introduced a filial principle for a family's harmony. For this reason, we can see a lot of images about filial stories in the park.

The park is huge, so instead of making us tired walking, we rent bicycles.


The park is really nice. They have gardens, lakes, stone bridges, stoney small hill... They even have a mini theme park and zoo inside the park.







There is a section that bicycles are prohibited, which is the tomb and temple of Shun Ti, where we have to park our bicycle beside a river.


Teenie tiny Shun Ti from far


Up close and personal

There are pigeons around the place. So I did crazy things like chasing them! Hehe!


Inside the park is the typical temple to pray and wish.





They have this uber huge drum for us to make a wish. We did 10 times because 十全十美. Paid RMB1 to do this. Haha.




After a tiresome day, we had dinner with all the relatives at the same hotel again. Ching was busy with the ice breaking session with her relatives while 3 of us busy eating.

The next day was rather a relaxing one. For the first time, we helped Ching's aunt to wrap dumpling.

We took the afternoon bus to Xi An to meet the schoolmate and head to our journey back to Urumqi. For the first time in 3 month too, we had our first McD meal in China. Haha!



They have this really nice grilled chicken burger! Too bad it's not available in Malaysia =(

We went on train at 7pm and suffering the 35 hours journey back. The schoolmate acted abit weird and bored, luckily we had a nice stranger sitting with us who is a nice guy.


GOODBYE XI AN!


Nice sunset bidding farewell...

I'll come back again one day because I want to conquer Mount Hua 华山!!! v(^.^)v

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