Dr. Mark Nan Tu

Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum is one of the biggest imperial tombs in China. It lies in the eastern suburbs of Nanjing City at the southern foot of Zhongshan (Purple) Mountain. Emperor Chengzu, Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and Queen Ma were buried there.
13 out of 16 emperor were buried in the Ming tombs around Beijing
The mausoleum has two discreet sections: One is the Sacred Way area and the other is the main body of the mausoleum itself.

The main gate

The 392 steps leads up to the tomb

The Dr Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum was built in 1926 in honor of Dr. Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), who is recognized as the Father of Modern China.

Two friends and I took a Chinese Hummer SUV for a 7 days; 2500 km drive through Hunan and Hubei province during the Spring festival holiday. We went though national highway, local express way, mud, dirt, snow,

The Mao status at the foot of the YueLu mountain

Aiwan Pavilion in winter

Yuelu mountain is located on the river bank of the Xiang river in Shanghai, the capital of Hunan
Mount Yuelu Scenic Area consists of hills, pinnacles, rivers, lakes, wide variety of species of flora and fauna, cultural historic site, revolutionary monuments. A visit to Changsha is not complete without climbing the Yuelu mountain.

Besides the beautiful natural sceneries, The mountain is dotted with inspiring cultural heritages including the Yuelu Academy, Lushan Temple, Yunlu Palace, Aiwan Pavilion, Baihe Spring, the Monument to Huang Xing and Cha Er. Monument to King Jiu and other minor historical traces.

Aiwan Pavilion
This pavilion was built during the reign of Emperor Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty and was made famous from the poem by Du Mu, a poet from the Song dynasty, which says ” Stop my carriage, for I love the maple forest in the deep autumn; the leaves in the frost are redder than the flowers in February.
The Pavilion is made even more famous because the Chinese leader Mao zhedong spend his spare time with fellow students when he was studying in Changsha normal collage in the early 20th century.

Lushan Temple
Lushan Temple in located in the middle section of the mountain and is one of the most ancient temples in Hunan built in Western Jin Dynasty. Today, it is a rather small temple but due to its location, it is still popular among those devoted followers.

Monument to Cha Er and Huang Xing
Both are national hero in the movement overthrown the imperial system.

Residence of King Jiu, the founding father of south Korea
This monument is located in the middle section of the mountain. One will easily miss it if not for its Korean writings. It is the hide out for King Jiu, the founding father of the modern south Korea. Mr. King Jiu stayed in Changsha Yuelu mountain during the Japanese occupation in Korea in the 1940s.

Yuelu Academy
Yuelu Academy was like the Harvard or Cambridge in the west or Beijing University in China. Yuelu Academy was the top Intellectual training ground for thousands of years until the early 20th century.

A leisure hike up the Yuelu Mountain takes about 1 hour. There is a viewing platform at the top of the mountain. From there, one can see the Xiang River passing through and the Juzizhou Island in the middle of the river and the Changsha city skyline at the distance. Mao zhedong once wrote in his poem: The Xiang river flow north and with the Juzizhou island in the middle. The trees levels are turning red and thousands of the boats are traveling in the Xiang river.

Yuelu Academy

One of the teaching room in the Yuelu Academy

The entrance to the Lushan Temple

Monument to HuangXing

From the top of the mountain, Xiang river and the JuZiZhou island and the Changsha city on the other side of the Xiang river

Heibei Toll Booth at the Jinzhu Expressway

I and two friends went for a 7 days tour to Hunan and Hubei during the Spring Festival holidays. We drove a Yongsi (Warriors) military Jeep produced by the Beijing Jeep factory. Two friends are from Shenzhen. Since the Yongsi Jeep is produced in Beijing and is only sold through dealers in Beijing, they preordered it from a Beijing dealer and flew to Beijing on February 3 afternoon to pickup the vehicle.

Nanyang, Henan Province to Shiyan, Hubei Province

Northen China plains

The detour to the back of the Wudang Mountain

We had a light breakfast at the hotel and checked out. We were heading for Shiyan City, Hubei Province. From there, we planned to visit the Wudang Mountain.
As none of us was familiar with Hubei, we brought a GPS unit. But, we quickly found that the direction given by GPS was incorrect. In a junction, we headed for a small road where all the locals told us to use a different road. The road pointed out by GPS was indeed the shortest road to Wudang Mountain. However, the road did not lead to the entrance but to the back mountain where we had to climb over a high mountain ridge over to Wudang.
The small road was badly maintained and the snow storm a month ago left the surface to be mud and ice. Our Yongsi Jeep performed very well. The mud tires gripped the surface and provided us with a skip free ride. The lower gear gave us a solid thrust which allowed us to get out many mud pits on the road.
It turned out that that scenery was extremely beautiful. Since there was hardly any vehicle travelled on this road, the ride was very enjoyable. We got out of the vehicle and took many pictures.
We turned back at about 15km and continued towards the Wudang Mountain. We arrived at the food of the Wudang Mountain at about 3pm. We had a very late lunch at one of the few restaurants that were still open. We got to the entrance at about 4:30pm. The staff suggested that we came back tomorrow as it was already getting dark.
We turned back and headed for Shiyan County. We booked a hotel close to the downtown area. Shiyan is the manufacturing base for the China Second Vehicle Manufacturing Company.
We checked in the hotel and off loaded our bags. We then set out to find dinner. Since it is the eve of the Chinese Spring Festival, we found that most of the restaurants were closed. We were very lucky and found a hotpot place in a narrow street near by our hotel.
The restaurant owner was a retired engineer from the China Second Vehicle Manufacturing Company. He had his three daughters visiting him during the Spring Festival. He was kindly enough to serve us hotpot dishes even there was no other customers in the restaurant.�
We bought some liquor in a store nearby. This is the Spring Festival�s Eve. We went back to our hotel room and watched TV. We drank the wine and send blessing text messages to friends and family members around China.

When it turned 12 at midnight, the whole city erupted into a giant firework shows. The noise of the firecrackers was defying.�
After the firecrackers celebration, we went to sleep. We had to get ready for hike the Wudang Mountain tomorrow.
Distance: Nanyang – Shiyan 265km.
Time: 8 hours including a detour, breaks and lunch

The small village at the foot of the Wudang Mountain (back mountain)

The local farming

Locals