• Tai'an is the city at the foot of the most revered Daoist mountain: Taishan (6:00AM)
    Don't forget to buy the train ticket for the departure as soon as you arrive!!! It's hard to get sleeper tickets in Tai'an!
  • Daoism is often called a religion but look at this street shaft lid!
    Can you imagine sacred religious symbols on the sewage system in your country??? Daoism is above and beyond religion...
  • Walking along Shengping Jie towards Dai Miao Temple
  • Traditionally all pilgrims stop by here on the way to Taishan
  • There are three famous halls in China...
  • Temple of Heavenly Blessing (Tai'an), Hall of Supreme Harmony (Forbidden City), Dacheng Hall at Qufu
  • Dai Miao was also the sacrificial site to the god of Taishan
  • Frankly that is probably the only interesting spot in Taian
  • The main hall is called Temple of Heavenly Blessing (Tiankuang)
  • Here is the tourist map of the Dai Miao temple complex
  • This is the first gate after you get in
  • What does it mean? I don't know...
  • You may spend up to 2 hours wandering around
  • Stele on the Back of Stone Tortoise (Shigui Tuo Bei) has a long history...
    It usually has three parts: The crown (usually carved with a patern of "chi", a mythological animal supposed to be one of the nine sons of Dragon), body and pedestal (Tortoise-like animal is called Bixi).
  • When a stele bears inscription written by the emperor...
    it invariably has a stone tortoise as it's base.
  • Ancient stelae were meant to bear inscriptions, however...
  • Some of them have no inscriptions at all
  • They are called "wordless stelae"
  • Some inscriptions are slowly disappearing, after hundreds of years
  • Some inscriptions are of more recent dates
  • Don't mix those stelae with ordinary tombstone and buried tablets which look alike
  • This is not a tombstone
  • Chinese dragons (yin and yang?)
  • Daoist deity
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