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Post by chefying on Jan 11, 2015 14:18:26 GMT
This about brings to and end my photos on HuaShan. I will go through my photos of ChongYang Gong and post them later.
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Post by chefying on Jan 11, 2015 14:37:10 GMT
As for the question, is there a Hua Shan Sect up there? Well, I did not see one. But what I can tell is that about 7 km West of the main entrance to Hua Shan was a school... And the closeup... Alas, I was unable to learn the Dugu Nine Swords while in HuaShan. If anything, what I saw was Dugu No Swords.
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Post by chefying on Jan 11, 2015 14:54:15 GMT
In the Jin Yong book, XiaoAo Jiang Hu 笑傲江湖 sometimes translated as "State of Divinity" and "Smiling, Proud Wanderer" was the Five Mountain Sword Sects Alliance 五岳剑派 (this is the translation I obtained from Wikipedia, so I am sticking to this). The five mountains are HuaShan 华山, HengShan 恒山, HengShan 衡山, SongShan 嵩山 and TaiShan 泰山. Having talked about HuaShan, this is HengShan 恒山. Introduction to HengshanCloseup of the Intro in English
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Post by chefying on Jan 13, 2015 10:24:56 GMT
Heng Shan is about 2000m high, and there is a long and winding access road (RMB10) that goes all the way to the mid-point of the peak. The car park is here. This is a photo of the car park from up Heng Shan - not quite from the top of the mountain though. The car park can be seen in the middle of the left hand side of the photo. Car park at the base of HengShan Although the sky looks promisingly blue and the sun felt warm, not all the snow from the previous night had melted yet. The following two photos shows the lingering snow by the side of the paths up in Heng Shan.
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Post by chefying on Jan 14, 2015 14:36:07 GMT
Was it difficult to climb up Heng Shan from the mid point? I don't know - I paid for a cable car ride up (but I walked down). It may not look like much ... but in reality the incline was quite steep nearing the end of the ride.
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Post by chefying on Jan 14, 2015 14:39:43 GMT
Getting there is not exactly cheap. I paid RMB350 for a taxi to take me to the Hanging Temple and to Heng Shan - and he waited for me, and sent me back to Datong. All in all, I took 5 hrs to see all that. So.... was Heng Shan pretty? Was it worth all the time and expenses? Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I found the scene from Heng Shan looks very calming... And looking around, it is not so bad either... Will I go there again? I think not. And no, when I was there I did not see a martial arts school, nor was there any hint of a place that suggests sword practice.
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Post by chefying on Jan 19, 2015 4:56:05 GMT
One of the first temples I visited up in Heng Shan was the Jiu Tian Gong 九天宫. It was a very normal temple, nothing quite outstanding. One of the more memorable visit up Heng Shan was to the Guan Gong Temple, the temple dedicated to the Chinese God of War. It was memorable because a middle aged, bearded man dressed in a Taoist garb paid me a lot of attention. He held my hand, studied the lines on it and gave me a flattering report on my character (filial, honest, etc.) and that things would go smoothly in the future - then he asked me for money. This is the temple in question, with a sleeping priest - I presume he was not on duty.
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Post by chefying on Jan 27, 2015 16:06:17 GMT
Up Heng Shan, there were signs along the mountain paths indicating directions and the one temple I was interested in was the Hengzong Dian 恒宗殿. Hengzong Dian was dedicated the the North Peak. This is what the Chinese government (presumably the tourism department) has to say about it:- Looking up, scaling the steps seems daunting... After the ascend, I started to wonder how I actually managed to conquer the stairs ... .... and more critically, how was I to get down safely!
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Post by chefying on Feb 3, 2015 8:36:47 GMT
Hengzong Dian is high, but not quite the highest accessible point in Heng Shan. Looking up from Hengzong Dian, it can be seen that there is still much to climb to reach Heng Shan's peak. I was too lazy to climb all the way up. And there were all sorts of words carved up in the mountain, above and beyond the Hengzong Dian. It seems that carving on the rocks up in Heng Shan was all the rage at one point in time. More words etched in stone
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Post by chefying on Feb 3, 2015 8:40:33 GMT
On my descent from Heng Shan, I saw this word "dao" carved onto the rock. I was immediately transported to the image of Wudang Clan's Zhang Cuishan from the Jin Yong book "Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre" where he challenged "Golden Lion" Xie Xin to a test of skill. In actual fact, the word "dao" was part of the phrase "wu dao", meaning acuity of the Path. Being a Star Wars fan, I was then led to think of the Force; it surrounds us, and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together... Maybe George Lucas was more a Taoist than he imagined. I was on the look-out of the words that representative of Heng Shan, and I finally found them. These words were originally brought to my attention by a series of stamps on Heng Shan issued by the People's Republic of China.
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Post by siuyiu on Feb 3, 2015 15:50:37 GMT
chefying i'm sure if you go looking, you'd find wuxia-star wars crossover fanfiction. (there seems to be fanfiction for everything.)
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Post by chefying on Mar 4, 2015 17:03:05 GMT
chefying i'm sure if you go looking, you'd find wuxia-star wars crossover fanfiction. (there seems to be fanfiction for everything.) Oh dear, wuxia-star wars cross over fan-fiction? What will they think of next!?
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Post by chefying on Mar 4, 2015 17:06:51 GMT
While Heng Shan is predominantly a Taoist place of worship, there is one large Buddhist temple at the mi-point up Heng Shan, near the car park. It seems to blast out Buddhist chanting all day long. Not quite my thing, but it seems to be popular with the locals. With one last look up Heng Shan, I descended and departed.
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Post by chefying on Mar 4, 2015 17:10:55 GMT
In a series of stamps produced by China commemorating Heng Shan, the Northern Peak, the first picture was Hanging Temple/Monastry - and it not even in Heng Shan! And so it was that I was compelled to go check it out.
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Post by chefying on Mar 4, 2015 17:16:25 GMT
About 6 hours train ride from Beijing towards the Province of Shanxi 山西 is the town of Datong 大同. A about 65 km from Datong is Heng Shan 恒山. Very near Heng Shan is an interesting temple called 县空寺, popularly known as the Hanging Temple/Monastery. The entrance fee for this temple (which is near, but is not Heng Shan) is RMB130. Entrance fee to Heng Shan is about RMB40 or thereabouts. This is the Hanging Temple - I think it is a Unicef Cultural Heritage site. Yes, it is narrow - this narrow... And this is the blurb about the Hanging Temple that is near Heng Shan.
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