Dr. Mark Nan Tu

I went hiking in the Fragrance Hill this weekend. The trees are turning green. The best time to hike the hill is April (to see the blossom flowers), May (to see the green trees), September (to see the red leaves) or October (to see the autumn sky).

The Ming Tombs Reservoir and behind is the Chinese Valley of Kings (Ming Tombs)

The Large Reservoir on the top of the MangShan Mountain is said to supply water to the Ming Tombs Reservoir

This weekend, most of the visitors are American Tourists who paid 3200USD for a 10day trip to China

Located in Huairou County about 45 miles from Beijing, Mutianyu Great Wall was first built in Northern Qi Dynasty (550 – 557)?and rebuild in Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644). It is one of the easiest accessible sections of the Great Wall around Beijing. This section of the wall was renovated during the recent years. There are two chair lefts which take the tourists up to the wall. The former US president Bill Clinton visited this section of the wall when he visited Beijing in the late 1990s.

I went to see the DunHuang exhibition in the Chinese Art Institute this afternoon. It is a rather small exhibition. I finished it in less than couple of hours and before 2 pm. I decided to drive east to the SongZhuang artist village.

I have heard a lot about this artist village and have never been there once. I have visited the 798 art district many times and was told that the art work in exhibition in 798 was mostly produced in SongZhuang.

Taking the Jingtong and Jingha express way, I arrived in SongZhuang in less than 30 minutes and got a look at this famous but yet quite village. SongZhuang?lies in the east suburb of Beijing. There are about 500 artists lived in several villages around SongZhuang, forming the largest art community in the world, which is known as Artist Village. Since 1994, Artist Village has built its international fame for China contemporary art, and many works here are sold directly to the international art market and favored by museums and collectors.

I first visited the visitor center in the heart of the village. I was greeted by a very friendly Chinese lady who showed me a map. I was introduced to a few exhibition halls down in the street. I then visited two of the most prominent exhibition halls. They are actually giant factory type of buildings show off the art works. The construction quality of the building is rather poor. But the art work is intriguing. After the exhibition hall, I walked around the village tried to have a glance of the artists

Our hiking group went hiking on the XiangShuiHu greatwall today. This part of the Greatwall is in HuaiRou and it connected with the MuTianYu and JianKou Greatwall. The section was originally build in Ming Dynasty and was repaired during the past few years. The slope is very steep at some 60-70 degree. There is no lift.

The vertical elevation is about 200 meters from the bottom to the top of the wall. We went to both the North and South section of the Wall at a total 400 meters elevation, still shorter than the Fragrance Hill which is over 500 meters elevation.

The vegetation is sparse during the winter session. But the weather is getting warmer every day after the Chinese New Year. The flowers in the spring and the green trees in the summer will surely add nice touches to the hikers. I will return here in the summer or the fall.

BaDaChu Park entrance

Praying

The name Badachu means Eight Great Sites, and refers to the eight Buddhist temples at the foot of Beijing’s Western Hills Scenic Area. Located along the outskirts of Beijing, it was restored during the 1980’s and has since become a famous tourist destination.

There are a total of eight former Buddhist temples and monasteries in Badachu Park. These are the Temple of Eternal Peace, the Temple of Divine Light, Three-hill Nunnery, the Temple of Great Mercy, Dragon Spring Nunnery, the Temple of Fragrant World, The Cave of Precious Pearl, and Zhengguo Temple.

Badachu Park is an attractive place to visit all year round. Visitors can stroll from one temple to another, enjoying the beautiful scenery and admiring the arbor and rare ancient trees. In September and October, when the leaves are turning red, crowds of tourists come to climb the mountains.

Badachu is also an excellent place for hiking. The hike is moderate and the steps are well maintained. It takes about 1.5 hour to walk from the foot of the mountain to the top including the time visiting the temples.

Badachu is also connected to the Fragrance Hill through a fire road at the middle of the mountain. A hike can start from the entrance to the BadaChu and follow the fire road all the way to Fragrance Hill and down to the foot. This hike is about 15km and goes through some of the best red leaves viewing area in Beijing. A good 3 hour walk is required to complete this journey. One can take a connecting bus from the Fragrance Hill to the BadaChu parking lot.

Entrance Fee:

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.

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

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