28th Oct. 2005, 28 miles to the west part of Beijing
It was a bright golden fall day. I and Mike visit Tanzhe temple. I met Mike at haohai just behind the Forbidden city, in a caffee shop while I was drinking and looking around someone were fishing at the shore of the lake.
He was alone and sat there as I was," . "hi " what's the lovely day isn't it?" we began to talk and quickly made friends and got to known who was booked a package tour from American with very short time in Beijing...and had a deep discussion about cultures,politics and a path to peace throuth sightseeing to understand each other's nation and also got to known that he is very interesting on the old of Beijing that let him imagine over 600 years ago. such as the places of hutong and drum tower where he was searching for ...I gave him a positive help to tell him how to get there and what was that tower's function. ---to anounce the time and due to he was fascinated on our ancient history and places that we were easy go to words on that related places. I mentioned him to visit Tanzhe temple if passible he had a free time in this trip...and left my mobile phone number to him that to help him if he made sure to go the next day ...to let me known ....at the 20:00pm while I was driving on my way home I recieved his call from his hotel that he told me tommorow might go to visit the tanzhe temple....and we made a appointment for tommorow at 9:00am at front of church of Wangfujing.
On the next day, we met the right place where we made. "hi, good moring, Joe, what's up,?" Mike smiled and walked to me. he brought his suitcase because he will shifit his hotel today..."Ok, Mike, how about we are going to the temple first, put your luggage in the trunk of the car. " I appraisable said:'' it 's ok, we take it to go, and due to save time. at morning time, specially on Monday mornig, we had big jam of traffic at most of road in Beijing." it's ok, that's great. let's go to the temple first."
We began own trip together to the Tanzhe Temple in western side of the ctiy. on our way without big traffic jam from center to west . '' We are on the changan road, you know Mike, this is the main road of Beijing, its from est to west with over 60 km, and most significant buiding on each side of the road. Tianmen square and Military museum, and big hotels and official office buildings." Beijing as the city races headlong into the 21st century, sleek glass office towers and frenetic rush hours confirm the capital's grasp of modernity, Beijing has a secret, the place where we were going to is a serene and spiritual pocket, a cluster of centuries-old Buddhist temples that are as charming as they are exotic. ...till the end of this road is a Irion and steel plant...we stoped at the shijingshan gucheng road where we had our breakfast at the Mcdonald's... the road are perfect when we drove in mountain area. it is newly rebuilt definitely.
The road in mountain area is a narrow, two-lane road with twists, turns and wildly careening trucks... though once accessible by foot or donkey , but today its makes a visit to the temple an easy day trip. We passed beehive boxes several times on the way up. the new built villa community. In recent decade, the villagers got more benefits in order to the travel industry, their standard life has been changed rapidly.
Before we saw a sign direction to the temple, we pull over at one local villager's house, that Mike was curiously to see interior. this is a typical family in local, has three girls. the oldest already had work in the center of the city and rest two at school, the parent are at middle of age 46 properly. they are very pleased let us inside of their house with courtyard.
The villagers were very warmly, when we ready to leave, there were some of neighbors around of us with smile, at that time, Mike hold in the arm one 15 months baby chuckled said to me:' hey, Joe , take a picture of me and baby, I will show it to my kids."
After parking, we began a long and chilly walk up a rock walkway that was steep. we turn to the left side to avoide the main gate. it was a peacefull morning, there are a lot of wild trees and birds and a kind of mountain rat jumped there and there fastly, the flying birds are middle sized with white and dark feather was singing. they were all busy serching their food and we saw an old local farmer was carrying a bine barrel down stair by a stick on his right hand. he was worked on pick up the fruits of the mountain. the air was much more fresh than the center city, specially with smell fragrant of the pine tree and grass and as well as mulberry trees here.
It is a beautiful landscape, specially in autumn season, with some of the leaves of the tree turned into golden colour and red be bright against the sunlight. we were climbed to the highest point of the temple, offering an excellent view of t he overall temple site and the surrounding hills, from this view we might be understood a little bit of the fengshui, why those ancient people to choose this landsite to built their temple here? a crumbling structure hidden in a shallow mountain valley.
After we paid the entrance, climbed craggedness stair and passed a very small gate ,stepped in the courtyard , we found it delicate pavilions, purifying clouds of incense and rare tranquillity, the architecture are coordinated with natu
