igoiseeishoot: Taiwan Day 2 (Part 1) – Sun Moon Lake, Wenwu temple

14 Dec 2011

I had booked a private taxi to take us from Tai-Chung to Cingjing with stopovers at Sun Moon Lake and Puli for sigthseeing. After a decent breakfast at the Le Parker Hotel, we loaded our luggage onto Mr Lim’s Toyota Wish taxi for the one hour journey to Sun Moon Lake. Sun Moon Lake is Taiwan’s largest fresh water lake and is known for its natural scenic beauty as well as aboriginal Thao tribe that live around the lake.

Along the way, Mr Lim pointed out a section of a hill on the left of the highway that looked like it was butter sliced with a hot knife. He explained that this was due to landslide and upheaval of the mountain from the 921 earthquake that happened 12 years ago. He also pointed out the many “ping lang” (betel nut palm) plantations along the way and how the government is discouraging planting of these trees nowadays as these trees have shallow roots and hence such plantations on a hill slope has a high risk of erosion and landslides.

Our first stop was the Wenwu temple, located at the northern part of Sun Moon Lake. The area in front of the temple offers a panoramic view of Sun Moon Lake. Although it was about 10 AM, the morning mist could still be seen in the distant mountains. Beautiful.

Before going into the temple, we stopped to look at the “Stairway to Heaven” located at the side of the car park opposite the temple. Before the round-the-lake road was built, the only way to get to Wenwu Temple was to take a boat to the pier below the temple and climb up this steep flight of steps. There are 366 steps symbolizing the 366 days in a year (including an extra day in leap year).

There are also wind chimes along the steps, which are used by devotees to ask for blessings. These wind chimes are bought inside the Wenwu temple, wishes and names written on them and then hung here by devotees.

After viewing the stairway to Heaven, we crossed the road and entered the Wenwu temple.

We were welcomed by two large red lions, flanking the stairs that leads to the first hall.

This temple honours First Ancestor Kaiji and the God of Literature, Guan Gong, the God of War, and the warrior-god Yue Fei and Confucius. Going past the first hall, there are large carvings of stone dragons by the steps leading to the second hall.

More wishing bells and chimes are hung inside the Wenwu temple.

The second hall honours the legendary historical figure Guan Yu. His famous weapon is the Blue Dragon Falchion that is supposed to weigh 175 kg.

How to fight with such a heavy weapon?

The next level of the temple honours Confucius.

After paying respect to Confucius and making a small donation to the temple, we passed through this archway go into a courtyard with a water feature (below).

The temple is located on a slope of the hill surrounding SML. Going further upwards, we admired the decorations within the temple and stone carvings on the walls.