Hongluosi--The Snail Temple

For our 5th weekend trip we headed to Hongluosi, a Buddhist temple a few hours outside of the city. A very old Buddhist area, the temple first appeared to be a small outpost the mountainside, filled with a few very large statues of Buddha. Here are a few pictures of the standard area:


The walk up


One of the Buddhas


Courtyard Area

We got through the standard area pretty quickly and found a few signs pointing us further up the mountain. We began to climb and before I knew it we were halfway up the mountain. Katie and I (the slow ones) were left in the dust by the other guys but we trekked up regardless and made it to a pagoda at one of the peaks, stopping from going any further because the trail ahead was closed (not to mention I was completely exhausted). We met up with most of the other DSIC students there and headed down. On the way, we noticed a booth advertising a slide down for 30 kuai, and even though it was a slight rip off, we all paid up and zipped down the mountainside, enjoying another mix of commercialism and Chinese history. We ended the trip by trying different flavors of Chinese icecream, most notably corn and cheese flavors (surprisingly good but my the watermelon bingqilin remains my favorite haha). Before I forget: here are some views from along the way.