The beauty of early winter in the Jiangzhe region is much like autumn in Northeast China; the tree leaves display a variety of colors, creating a truly stunning sight. The only difference is that blue skies are much rarer here.
This trip to Hangzhou was not without its troubles. Right after leaving Shanghai, my phone completely lost service. At first, I thought it was a phone issue, so I headed straight to the Apple Store after getting off the high-speed train. Later, I discovered it was actually a SIM card problem. I went to a China Unicom business hall and got a new SIM card, but the issue persisted. After customer service transferred me to a senior representative, we finally found out that the domestic roaming function had gotten stuck. Once this service was refreshed, everything was restored. I was really badly screwed by Unicom’s terrible system, and my entire itinerary was thrown into chaos. Fortunately, I had Baidu Maps with me—I could use its hotspot sharing feature and call customer service. Otherwise, I would have been completely in the dark with no idea what to do.
Hangzhou was suffering from severe smog, but it was slightly better inside the forested areas. The Lingyin Scenic Area includes Lingyin Temple (which requires a separate ticket), Feilai Peak, the Feilai Peak Stone Carvings, and Yongfu Temple. If you’re not particularly interested in visiting temples, there’s no need to buy an extra ticket for Lingyin Temple—Yongfu Temple is just as nice~~~
Preserved on the cliff face by the stream are stone Buddhist statues carved over a period of more than 500 years, from the Five Dynasties period through the Yuan Dynasty, totaling 345 statues.
Unfortunately, many of the Buddha statues were destroyed during certain indescribable historical periods; for example, the faces of this entire row have been chiseled off.
The “Ligong Pagoda,” which houses the ashes of Master Huili, the founding patriarch of Lingyin.
We decided to go off the beaten path and chose the higher Lianhua Peak on the other side of Feilai Peak, only to find there was absolutely nothing up there, and we couldn’t see much looking down either… So, you’d better just stick to Feilai Peak…
Finally, Yongfu Temple seems to be home to a group of very artistic monks. They keep deer inside the temple grounds and even host photography exhibitions, calligraphy shows, and the like.
Photos in this post taken with a SONY A5100 + 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 lens, post-processed in Lightroom.
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