Spring Festival - Chengdu Day 2: Wang Jian Tomb, Green Ram Temple, SciTech Museum, Wide Narrow Ally
The gate of the tomb from the street looked promising as well as a promenade before you reach the tomb. The promenade is lined with animal, mystical beast and priest (I believe) statues. The tomb is of: King Wang of the Former Shu Kingdom which had been re-established by King Wang at the end of the Tang Dynasty and survived into the Five Dynasties Period, and dates to over 1000-years-ago.
You are allowed to go into the Tomb but no pictures were allowed inside. The artefacts had all been removed from the tomb. What was left was the coffin bed and the reliefs, which were very cool. The tomb was a circular mound on the outside and Angeline and I walked around it. They were currently doing construction on the exhibit hall and so sadly that was all there was to see.
Once we left the complex we walked by a square that was decorated for the tomb. The centre piece being a mock-up of the coffin bed from the tomb which I had thought (the original) was interesting for the men coming out of the ground mock-carrying the coffin bed (as seen in the remake). However, the original didn’t have the dragon-rabbit topper. Behind the mock-coffin bed and dragon-rabbit were the 24 statues of the musicians of court (Angeline and I couldn’t find all 24), which were also part of the relief of the tomb.
Green Ram Temple
Next we had gone to the Green Ram Temple, which the outer gate had some interesting architecture much like that at Du Fu’s Cottage complex. It is not called Green Ram Temple in Chinese, in Chinese it is the Qingyang Taoist Temple (青羊宫 qing1yang2gong1) although qing means ‘nature’s colours blue or green’ and yang means ‘ram, sheep, goat’ Qingyang is the name of the district of the city. The Temple was first built in the Zhou Dynasty (1045-256 BCE) and held many names. During the Huang Chao Rebellion in about 881 CE the Tang Emperor hid in the temple and as thanks he donated the money to build the temple on a larger scale. Then there was extensive reconstruction in the Qing Dynasty.
This was the first temple hall that we came across. The second hall-Hunyuan Hall had some nice relief, windows, doors and support beams. It housed the Patriarch of Original Chaos and the Goddess of Great Compassion.
There was the very interesting Eight Trigram Pavilion, which had a Taoist stair/ramp relief leading up to it, gold dragon pillars, an interesting double roof, and some of the beams rested on creatures. Between the Hunyuan Hall and the Eight Trigram Pavilion was a garden. There were those really interesting plants that never really looked natural, and a few had lost their leaves so I could see the inner workings (and the subtle natural manipulation of branches).
The Hall of Three Purities was next. The design was also very interesting: the railing up to the temple, the Taoist stair/ramp relief with the zodiac animals, the creatures that supported the beams and the bronze goats the female on the left and the male on the right. You will notice that the bronze goat is worn in some areas. Each different area represents a different zodiac animal you rub the area for your animal three times with your left hand for luck. I only know two of them the rabbit is the back (mine) and the eyes are the rooster (Angeline); so we gained some good luck!
Wenchang Hall had brightly coloured roof supports. Then there was the Mountain Gate of the Temple of Two Immortals, which had a different roof design that is popular in Sichuan. There was a courtyard that was tiled to show a large yin-yang. The Hall of the Patriarch Lü Dongbin I was able to get good close-ups of the roof: the figures, the corners, the lintel reliefs, the posts, and the temple guardians. It ended in the Hall of Two Immortals which had interesting doors with nice reliefs.
We turned around and made our way back. We had essentially walked down the right side and went back down the left side of the complex. There was a building-the Hall of the Tang Emperors-that was off to the side and up some stairs, it had these interesting monkey topped handrails. The hall had nice eves and rafters. Up another flight of stairs were the Revelation Terrace and the Hall of Goddess Doumu. The building was in a bit of disrepair but had some wonderful frescos and the stair going down were just as interesting and the one that had gone up.
Lunch
For lunch we went to a nearby cafeteria type place. The restaurant according to Angeline is very good and popular. It was packed but Angeline had said that she had seen it worse. We stood in line for a while and ordered a couple sampler platters that came with a bunch of different Chengdu foods to try that really weren’t spicy. The most notable were the Chengdu specialty wonton soup ((龙抄手 long2chao1shou3 literal translation: dragon’s folded arms) very good) and the Chengdu special dumplings ((钟水饺 zhong1shui3jiao3) so-so). We also got bubble tea! After lunch we walked by the giant panda that was climbing up a building.
The stop for the metro lets you out into the Sunken Square where from the exit of the metro I could see the Sichuan Science and Technology Museum. The square had a very interesting design. A lot of things that you would think were fountains ended up not being fountains at least not in the common sense.
Sichuan Science and Technology Museum
This museum cost 30 RMB, and it would really depend on what you like whether or not you would find it worth it. Outside they were advertising a Transformers exhibition but it wasn’t open yet. The first floor was empty! It has the temporary exhibits (which there were none and they weren’t even closed off in preparation for the next one), Aviation and Spaceflight, and a couple other things according to the map and none that we saw. The space and aviation was just a bunch of models and simulations that were not open.
Second floor was Scientific and Technological Achievement of the 11th fice-year plan (as it says on the map. At the exhibit it said 11th 5 year, which made it sound like we were celebrating someone’s eleventy-fifth birthday (like Bilbo’s ‘eleventy-first’ birthday)), Machinery, Energy and Material, Robot, and Virtual World Electromagnetism. All of them were very Spartan and all of the robots had been powered down. There was however, a movie playing that seemed to be pieces of nature and cultural documentaries for Sichuan, which wasn’t bad it played with subtitles in English and Chinese.
We were pretty bummed out because we were trying to kill time so that we could see the Wide and Narrow Alley after dark.
The third floor is about a hundred times better than the rest; this included: Geographic and Astronomic, Astronomical Phenomena, Acoustics and Optics, Mathmatics Mechanic, Life Science, and Ecology and Environment. This floor was fun there were a set of scales that you could stand on and it would tell you your weight on all the planets in the solar system, Pluto (which China still says is a planet) and the moon. Life Science was the most run down and we spent the longest in Acoustics and Optics and the Maths section. I am assuming that these lasted the years since they are low tech with mirrors and refracted light.
One was called the floating head. Angeline went into the box first and stuck her head out of the hole and was disappointed that nothing had happened. But from my view and the use of mirrors it appeared as if her head was floating. So we switched places and she could see the affect.
We were surprised when we stayed until closing which was only until 16:30 so we still had time before dark. We decided to head over to the Wide and Narrow Alley and get dinner. We decided to take a bus two stops instead of walking and due to a poorly named stop went much further then we wanted to. But it worked out since we got dinner outside of the Wide and Narrow Alley where food was cheaper.
But I would like to address the issue that I have been in Science Museums in the US, China, Hong Kong, and Thailand and the majority of all of these museums looks like they were built in the 1970s and haven’t been touched since except by small children that eventually broke them. There needs to be more funding to museums, especially the interactive ones!
Dinner
For dinner we had Sichuan noodles with a spicy and numbing sauce (担担面dan4dan4mian4). This was my favourite of the Sichuan noodles! The picture is of after I mixed it up but it comes with the sauce at the bottom and the ground meat on the top and you mix it up and enjoy!
Wide and Narrow Alley
After dinner we walked down to the Wide and Narrow Alley. We figured that we could get more daylight photos and after dark photos. The architecture and relief was varying and fun.
We were able to go in a building for free and look at the architecture and some artefacts that were found there. It had some of the most interesting walkways around the inner courtyard area.
We ended up ducking into the Travel Culture Creative Shop on the Narrow Alley to look for post cards, which we found. They also had a small DIY area were you can purchase stuff to make jewellery, key chains, hair pins, message in a bottle charms and then they had a table and the tools for you to put it together. We decided to do this and Angeline made a quicker decision on what to make then I did I finally settled on a key chain, but by the time I had started to put it together Angeline was practically finished hers! But it was still fun.
When we left the shop, it was dark. And a lot of things that I had thought were just painted designs ended up being lights. It also meant that a lot of the odder named places stuck out now that their signs were lit up. We left the same way that we came in and the Christmas tree was lit up as well.
We took a bus to the subway station and then the subway back to the hotel; on the subway I knitted for a little and was only briefly nauseous! We were too late to get the bus from the metro station so we had to get a Pedi cab. Angeline’s parents met us by the gate and insisted on buying me fruit. I finally agreed to apples and then they bought Angeline and I bubble tea. Angeline’s father also bought oranges and a bunch of bananas. In the end all the fruit was for me!
You are allowed to go into the Tomb but no pictures were allowed inside. The artefacts had all been removed from the tomb. What was left was the coffin bed and the reliefs, which were very cool. The tomb was a circular mound on the outside and Angeline and I walked around it. They were currently doing construction on the exhibit hall and so sadly that was all there was to see.
Once we left the complex we walked by a square that was decorated for the tomb. The centre piece being a mock-up of the coffin bed from the tomb which I had thought (the original) was interesting for the men coming out of the ground mock-carrying the coffin bed (as seen in the remake). However, the original didn’t have the dragon-rabbit topper. Behind the mock-coffin bed and dragon-rabbit were the 24 statues of the musicians of court (Angeline and I couldn’t find all 24), which were also part of the relief of the tomb.
Green Ram Temple
Next we had gone to the Green Ram Temple, which the outer gate had some interesting architecture much like that at Du Fu’s Cottage complex. It is not called Green Ram Temple in Chinese, in Chinese it is the Qingyang Taoist Temple (青羊宫 qing1yang2gong1) although qing means ‘nature’s colours blue or green’ and yang means ‘ram, sheep, goat’ Qingyang is the name of the district of the city. The Temple was first built in the Zhou Dynasty (1045-256 BCE) and held many names. During the Huang Chao Rebellion in about 881 CE the Tang Emperor hid in the temple and as thanks he donated the money to build the temple on a larger scale. Then there was extensive reconstruction in the Qing Dynasty.
This was the first temple hall that we came across. The second hall-Hunyuan Hall had some nice relief, windows, doors and support beams. It housed the Patriarch of Original Chaos and the Goddess of Great Compassion.
There was the very interesting Eight Trigram Pavilion, which had a Taoist stair/ramp relief leading up to it, gold dragon pillars, an interesting double roof, and some of the beams rested on creatures. Between the Hunyuan Hall and the Eight Trigram Pavilion was a garden. There were those really interesting plants that never really looked natural, and a few had lost their leaves so I could see the inner workings (and the subtle natural manipulation of branches).
The Hall of Three Purities was next. The design was also very interesting: the railing up to the temple, the Taoist stair/ramp relief with the zodiac animals, the creatures that supported the beams and the bronze goats the female on the left and the male on the right. You will notice that the bronze goat is worn in some areas. Each different area represents a different zodiac animal you rub the area for your animal three times with your left hand for luck. I only know two of them the rabbit is the back (mine) and the eyes are the rooster (Angeline); so we gained some good luck!
Wenchang Hall had brightly coloured roof supports. Then there was the Mountain Gate of the Temple of Two Immortals, which had a different roof design that is popular in Sichuan. There was a courtyard that was tiled to show a large yin-yang. The Hall of the Patriarch Lü Dongbin I was able to get good close-ups of the roof: the figures, the corners, the lintel reliefs, the posts, and the temple guardians. It ended in the Hall of Two Immortals which had interesting doors with nice reliefs.
We turned around and made our way back. We had essentially walked down the right side and went back down the left side of the complex. There was a building-the Hall of the Tang Emperors-that was off to the side and up some stairs, it had these interesting monkey topped handrails. The hall had nice eves and rafters. Up another flight of stairs were the Revelation Terrace and the Hall of Goddess Doumu. The building was in a bit of disrepair but had some wonderful frescos and the stair going down were just as interesting and the one that had gone up.
Lunch
For lunch we went to a nearby cafeteria type place. The restaurant according to Angeline is very good and popular. It was packed but Angeline had said that she had seen it worse. We stood in line for a while and ordered a couple sampler platters that came with a bunch of different Chengdu foods to try that really weren’t spicy. The most notable were the Chengdu specialty wonton soup ((龙抄手 long2chao1shou3 literal translation: dragon’s folded arms) very good) and the Chengdu special dumplings ((钟水饺 zhong1shui3jiao3) so-so). We also got bubble tea! After lunch we walked by the giant panda that was climbing up a building.
The stop for the metro lets you out into the Sunken Square where from the exit of the metro I could see the Sichuan Science and Technology Museum. The square had a very interesting design. A lot of things that you would think were fountains ended up not being fountains at least not in the common sense.
Sichuan Science and Technology Museum
This museum cost 30 RMB, and it would really depend on what you like whether or not you would find it worth it. Outside they were advertising a Transformers exhibition but it wasn’t open yet. The first floor was empty! It has the temporary exhibits (which there were none and they weren’t even closed off in preparation for the next one), Aviation and Spaceflight, and a couple other things according to the map and none that we saw. The space and aviation was just a bunch of models and simulations that were not open.
Second floor was Scientific and Technological Achievement of the 11th fice-year plan (as it says on the map. At the exhibit it said 11th 5 year, which made it sound like we were celebrating someone’s eleventy-fifth birthday (like Bilbo’s ‘eleventy-first’ birthday)), Machinery, Energy and Material, Robot, and Virtual World Electromagnetism. All of them were very Spartan and all of the robots had been powered down. There was however, a movie playing that seemed to be pieces of nature and cultural documentaries for Sichuan, which wasn’t bad it played with subtitles in English and Chinese.
We were pretty bummed out because we were trying to kill time so that we could see the Wide and Narrow Alley after dark.
The third floor is about a hundred times better than the rest; this included: Geographic and Astronomic, Astronomical Phenomena, Acoustics and Optics, Mathmatics Mechanic, Life Science, and Ecology and Environment. This floor was fun there were a set of scales that you could stand on and it would tell you your weight on all the planets in the solar system, Pluto (which China still says is a planet) and the moon. Life Science was the most run down and we spent the longest in Acoustics and Optics and the Maths section. I am assuming that these lasted the years since they are low tech with mirrors and refracted light.
One was called the floating head. Angeline went into the box first and stuck her head out of the hole and was disappointed that nothing had happened. But from my view and the use of mirrors it appeared as if her head was floating. So we switched places and she could see the affect.
We were surprised when we stayed until closing which was only until 16:30 so we still had time before dark. We decided to head over to the Wide and Narrow Alley and get dinner. We decided to take a bus two stops instead of walking and due to a poorly named stop went much further then we wanted to. But it worked out since we got dinner outside of the Wide and Narrow Alley where food was cheaper.
But I would like to address the issue that I have been in Science Museums in the US, China, Hong Kong, and Thailand and the majority of all of these museums looks like they were built in the 1970s and haven’t been touched since except by small children that eventually broke them. There needs to be more funding to museums, especially the interactive ones!
Dinner
For dinner we had Sichuan noodles with a spicy and numbing sauce (担担面dan4dan4mian4). This was my favourite of the Sichuan noodles! The picture is of after I mixed it up but it comes with the sauce at the bottom and the ground meat on the top and you mix it up and enjoy!
Wide and Narrow Alley
After dinner we walked down to the Wide and Narrow Alley. We figured that we could get more daylight photos and after dark photos. The architecture and relief was varying and fun.
We were able to go in a building for free and look at the architecture and some artefacts that were found there. It had some of the most interesting walkways around the inner courtyard area.
We ended up ducking into the Travel Culture Creative Shop on the Narrow Alley to look for post cards, which we found. They also had a small DIY area were you can purchase stuff to make jewellery, key chains, hair pins, message in a bottle charms and then they had a table and the tools for you to put it together. We decided to do this and Angeline made a quicker decision on what to make then I did I finally settled on a key chain, but by the time I had started to put it together Angeline was practically finished hers! But it was still fun.
When we left the shop, it was dark. And a lot of things that I had thought were just painted designs ended up being lights. It also meant that a lot of the odder named places stuck out now that their signs were lit up. We left the same way that we came in and the Christmas tree was lit up as well.
We took a bus to the subway station and then the subway back to the hotel; on the subway I knitted for a little and was only briefly nauseous! We were too late to get the bus from the metro station so we had to get a Pedi cab. Angeline’s parents met us by the gate and insisted on buying me fruit. I finally agreed to apples and then they bought Angeline and I bubble tea. Angeline’s father also bought oranges and a bunch of bananas. In the end all the fruit was for me!