Hello, the beautiful people of the Hive universe! After a couple of my Shanghai trip days, today I am going to share about the top and the most attractive tourist place in Nanjing which is known as Nanjing Niushoushan Cultural Tourism Zone. The 5A-rated 29 square km park is located in Jiangning District of the southern part of Nanjing city. The name 'Niushoushan' comes with the Cow from the 'Niu' Head for the 'Shou' and Horns for the 'Shan' means the cow -head with two horns as the place has two peaks like the horns arrangements!
I came to know from my friend living in Nanjing that this is this place is holding the top 3 beautiful Buddhist temples and Buddhism in China. The most important factor about this place is for the Buddhist people as there are relics from buddha and you can easily grab some ideas and thoughts from the monks living there. When I read about that place I found some really great information about the magnificent place.
Niushoushan has long been forgotten by people until Oct 27, 2015 when the world’s only parietal relic of Buddha was put there. A grandiose Buddhism-themed palace was built to place the relic of Buddha. Since then, there have been more and more visitors coming to Niushoushan to worship the Buddha, experience Buddhism culture, and marvel at its magnificent architecture.
[source: https://www.chinadiscovery.com/jiangsu/nanjing/niushoushan.html]
For being a little bit southern area it is difficult to go there by public transport but renting a car will be a great choice. My friend went there on his electric bike as he is living there for more than a year. Later I will show you the beautiful campus of Southeast university in a future post.
We started our journey from his campus just after taking our launch around 12:00 pm and it takes around 1 hour to reach there as we have taken some coffee on the way as it is winter and though by an electric bike, slower speed can make us feel the cold wind.
The ticket price for adults is 98 RMB per person which is around $13 which is slightly higher than most such kind of tourist spots, especially temple-related mountain parks in my little experience in China. But if I compare it with my own country, then no one will visit such a luxurious park! But after visiting the place I am convinced that it deserves more than that for some great opportunities for photography or spending time with family or hiking mountains and walking around with the astonishing natural beauties here.
After getting our tickets, we get our first view like this, it was beautiful!
I don't know what is written below the footprint but this is something related to Buddha I guess. And the stone inscribed text is telling about the place and its 15 beautiful spots in this 29 sq. km area. And here some instruments are placed for making some loud voice and many children love doing this!
And then the first of the 15 view pot comes which is the lake with some beautiful colorful fishes. Also the view from here with the great natural background is awesome. That's why this is a great place for photography.
The side views of the lake will give you different taste of background for any kind of photoshoots or only for nature photography.
The combo of mountains-lake-blue sky-green canopy everything is here!
Again we started walking towards the 2nd place which is the Bridge on the lake and it look stunning from very far as we enter and the last spot that we can see is the temple on the mountains which is far and far ahead.
It is very enjoyable to walk toward the mountains as there are so many beautiful surrounds your way. And I have also taken some shots with some beautiful surroundings.
We have also noticed many many tourists are walking towards the most spactacular zone of this tourist place called the Floding Temple where you can go very easily by bus and comeback by bus also. In this way you will miss all the things I am going to share towards the the mountains and in the multiples Buddhist temples on the way.
Also the direction signs are noticeable at a frequent interval and you can get the better idea about your way to cover all the place you want to cover!
And after a couple of minutes walking I came to the 2nd architectural beauty attraction of this area, the JIXIAN BRIDGE which is a symbolic one with the Elite Monks lived in Niushoushan according to the nameplate.
The bridge is smaller but the beauty of the bridge with the surrounding natural decoration will definitely catch your eyes. And it can be a great place for shooting some bollywood movie songs as I have seen a lot of beautiful places in Bollywood songs in my Childhood!
The sunny day and the flowing lake water with the smaller stones here and there is like dreamy place. Also the surrounding forrests with the blue sky can extend the beauty to the next level.
After the crossing bridge the new area to explore in the surrounding. There are some plain green grass slopes where you can take a long rest as cleanliness is a top priority here.
Also, the surrounding beauty will never let you be tired. I was with my friend and we were not tired at all as this is the just beginning of the area to explore today till the late evening!
Now it is time to visit the third site area which is just a series of dome portrait of a kind of story which may be wrong as it is my guess.
But I have taken all the photos of those pictures to know about the real story from my Chinese colleagues in the future.
Our journey was going on after watching these arts very fast. Then we almost passed more than an hour already and still we have to climb the mountain.
From here the view of the Bridge was astonishing through the clear view and the nice weather. This time I was in a large empty area with green grass on the ground and a clear sky on the horizon. This place is so calm and beautiful that you are gonna love it.
And adjacent to this empty place, is the first Buddhist temple is here and my friend wanted to explore the inside of it as this is among the top 3 Buddhist temples in China!
And I was so interested to enter there and before entering we have taken some shots in front of the gate with the help of some Chinese. As it is difficult for us to communicate but asking for taking photos is easy with some gestures!
Just before the gate, I saw some Buddhist sitting arrangements for doing some kind of deep thoughts on life. So I didn't forget to capture those as I am curious about such things.
Though I have no knowledge of these stylistic appearance is really amazing to explore here. And they are also very beautiful from the decoration perspective.
After entering the main gate the temple's main buildings were higher and we got up there. And we have come to the front of the main temple and as usual, the buildings structures were astonishing.
From a little bit higher position the city view was also a beautiful scenery here before entering the gorgeous golden-colored metallic bodies of the Buddha and many other important persons like monks there who are completely unknown to me.
Inside the Temple
Though it was not allowed always to take photos there, I and my friend has taken some from the outside and before they tell us bout the rules but the golden-colored giant Buddha was really amazing to explore. And also, the other people's sculptures were also very gigantic and they really respect them as they worship them regularly.
This is all for today as the post is going a gigantic one. But I want to assure you that more and the major attraction is left for the next part. I hope you will love it more than this blog as the place is so large. Even though We could not finish all the parts only 2/5 of the total area covered the most popular and amazing part. And for winter some parts were not beautiful as for other seasons as during March/April!
Just for your concern, the shaded area is covered today in the following map and the marked areas will be covered in the next blog I have visited only these parts this time. Maybe next time I will cover the rest of it.
I hope you like my blog on the Niushou Mountain Cultural Tourism Zone of Nanjing city and invite you to get the experience of my tour in my upcoming blogs. And if you are planning to visit or have any kinds of queries, you can ask me in the comments. I will try to answer at my level best.
Thanks a lot for your time and attention, I will catch you at the next one.
Have a nice day!
