Monthly Archives: May 2013

The Golden Temple

Being a national key cultural relics protection units, the Golden Temple is located in the east mingfeng foothills which is 7 kilometers away the northern suburbs of Kunming city, and it is a famous Taoist temple in Yunnan province. It is China’s largest copper architecture which is much more intact than the Longevity Hill in Summer Palace and much larger than the Hubei Wudang Mountain. It is the largest pure copper temple in China nowadays and it releases unripe brightness under the sun and looks dazzling, therefore comes the name of “Golden Temple” and being a famous scenic spot in Yunnan province.

Golden Temple features square appearance with its length of 6.15 meters and height 6.7 meters and total weight about 200 tons. The whole architecture sculpture is exquisite, proportion, aesthetically pleasing, and extremely fine realistically imitates the wooden classical architecture of the double-hipped roof jehiel mountain type .Though it has experienced hundreds of years of ups and downs and turn to primitive simplicity nowadays, it has provided important physical materials to the researches of metallurgy casting technology from the Ming and Qing dynasty in Yunnan province and also to the modelling and decoration of wood construction of the end of the Qing dynasty.

The Golden Temple

Golden Temple has 500 acres of tower landscape botanical garden and it has built ten parks such as tea garden, azalea garden, magnolia garden, rose garden, greenhouse zone etc. and introduced over 2000 garden plants. Golden Temple is a unique travel scenic spot and also a combination of human landscape and natural landscape. In the back of the Golden Temple, there are one camellia and two crape myrtles which were planted in Ming dynasty and thousands of camellia flowers are in full bloom during the Spring festival time.

Travel information: 1) Ticket price: 20 RMB/adult; 2) Opening time: 7:30 a.m.-18:00 p.m.3) Ways to gi there: take the city public buses No.10,60,71,76,146 and 147 to the Golden Temple stop.

Yunnan Minority Village

Covering an area of 89 hectares, the Yunnan Minority Village is located in the pictureque bank of Dianchi lake in southwest suburbs of the Kunming city. It is the window to reflect and show the social and cultural customs of the 26 nations there and national AAAA level scenic spots, the national culture base of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission and CIOFF committee traditional folk culture base in China.

Yunnan Minority Village

Yunnan Minority Village main door is a group of rich and elegant and spectacular steel frame structures, hanging “Yunnan Minority Village ” five forceful and flourish and attractive characters, and the middle is a golden peacock graphics logo with wings to take off, which is a symbol of the Yunnan Minority Village’s auspicious happiness and prosperous and bright feature. In front the gate is wide and smooth flow distributing plaza, and the lawn is a group of vivid, lively and lovely white elephant sculptures, called “white elephants welcoming guests”.

Yunnan Minority Village

Yunnan Minority Village scenic spot has a variety of ethnic residential buildings, colorful dress and clothing, witty and funny marriage customs and etiquette, colorful folk festivals, humorous and beautiful music and dance together with exhibition, recreation, vacation, catering services and other comprehensive supporting facilities. When you have a visit there, you can not only get to know the architecture style of all ethnic groups in Yunnan, ethnic costumes and ethnic customs, but also enjoy the laser fountains, water curtain films, folk song and dance, the elephant show and even taste ethnic snacks and buy national arts and crafts there. It will undoubtedly an enjoyable and wonderful trip there!

Travel tips: 1) Ticket price: 90 Yuan/adult; 2) Opening time: 8:30-17:00 in the daytime and 18:00-22:00 at night; 3) Duration: one day; 4) Best time to visit: Summer time and Autumn time; 5) How to get there: take the public buses No.73,44, 24, and 21.

Kunming West Hill

West Hill, also called the Biji Hill, is the Generic Terms of the Binao Hill, Huating Hill, Taihua Hill and Luohan Hill. West Hill is located in the western suburbs of kunming, and the west bank of Dianchi lake with 15 kms away from downtown, lies the Dianchi Lake and stands the Golden Horse Mountain. North begins from the Biji Pass to the Haikou in the north, it strenches 35 kilometers in total with the highest peak Luohan Peak 2, 511 meters above sea level.Rolling hills, look like sleeping Buddha, so it also called Wofo Hill. It has been hornored as an AAAA level secnic spot in China in October 2006.

It is a large forest park characterized by fluctuate ridges and peaks, green and flourish forests, stream spring, various birds and sweet flowers, and it is a famous scenic spot with a plenty of places of historic interest and scenic beauty. Main attractions include: huating temple, Taihua temple, Samcheonggak, Longmen, Samantabhadra temple and other places of interest. West Hill is a famous attraction featuring cultural relics, places of scenery, forest and scenic spots. The scenic spot scenic has highway, water shipping and cableway, which makes the traffic there convenient.

Kunming West Hill

Dense forest, flourish flowers and grass, quiet and beautiful scenery make the West Hill enjoys the reputation of “No.1 scenery in Dianchi Lake”. The Huating Temple, with a history of more than 900 years, located in the middle of the West Hill, is one of the largest Buddhist temples in Yunnan which worthy your visit. Just don’t miss it!

Travel information: 1) Opening time: 8:00 a.m.~18:30 p.m. 2) Ticket price: 40 RMB/adult in peak season and 30 RMB/adult in slack season; 3) Best time to visit: spring time, summer time and autunm time as you can view the desen forest, flourish flower and beautiful scenery there; 4) Ways to go there: take the city buses line 3,4,62,98 and 107; 5) Duration: 3-4 hours.

Yuantong Temple

Yuantong Temple is located in the northeast of kunming with its shape like a willow, something long and narrow between the north and the south. Covering a total area of about 26 hectares, it is a famous attraction in Kunming with most abundant contents and visitors, especially the flower lake, animals and ancient temples there are the most attractive.

Yuantong temple is a comprehensive park which mainly displays animal. There are existing more than 140 kinds of animals with the number more than 1000. In these exotics animals, there are specialty aminals in xishuangbanna in yunnan such as buffalo, mong-la tiger, peacock and other animals, which can peep the epitome of “animal kingdom” in yunnan province. Besides, there are also some other rare animals of China including the giant panda, the east-northern tiger, the red-crowned crane and so on. There are pavilions, tables, floors, cabinets, gardens, animal farms and aquarium and playgrounds and other facilities on the Yuantong Temple, whose characteristic is to show the animal mainly, with the comprehensive landscape of all kinds of flowers. Yuantong hill is located in the city center, convenient to many tourists, which makes it become an important tourism hotspot of kunming city.

Yuantong Temple

Yuantong hill, about 50 meters higher than the city, is one of the best places to view and admire the scenery around kunming. Yuantong temple is located in south of the Yuantong Hill with yuantong street in the front, is connected with kunming zoo, whose layout is rigorous and symmetry and subject is outstanding. It is one of the oldest buddhist temple in kunming. Yuantong Temple is magnificant with its Buddha statue solemn and pavillions uqniue to make it one of the 8 famous attractions in Kunming.

Travel tips: 1) Scenic area categories: cultural landscape scenic spot; 2) Opening time: 8:00 a.m. – 18:00 p.m. 3) Ticket price: 20 RMB/adult; 4) Best time to visit: March time for the plum viewing; 5) Ways to go there: take the city public buses No.4, 59, 74,83,101 to the Yuantong Mountain stop; 6) Do remember to have a taste of the vegetarian food especially the Buddhist vegetarian food there.

Black Dragon Pool

Located in the northern suburbs of kunming longquan foothills, the Black Dragon Pool is an ancient scenic area in Kunming covering an area of 91.4 hectares. Black Dragon Pool is composed of two areas: ancient architectural complex and Longquan plum visiting, and there are two pools which are separated by a bridge for a result of one clear spring water and other one muddy spring water; both two spring waters are conected with each other, but fish won’t jump over to other pools. Outside the Black Dragon Pool entrance is the Kunming institute of botany, where a plenty of the strange flowers and trees are planted there with the four seasons of flowers, which makes it a miniature of the yunnan “nation plant workers”.

Black Dragon Pool scenic area features many characteristic areas including Longquan Plum Garden, Longquan Osmanthus Garden, Longquan Boutique Park, Longquan Rhododendron Velley, Longquan Red Maple’s and Longquan Martyrs etc. Among which, the Longquan Plum Garden is the the southwest region’s largest reward plum resort and club research bases. There are thousands of plum trees, plum pile and ancient plum of one hundred year; besides, there are of the Yunnan local ethnic architecture pavilion, table, floor, shed with strong characteristics, which shows the unique temperament and interest of the Chinese plum culture.

Black Dragon Pool

Black Dragon Pool noawadays has planted a wide range of the plums behind its mountain and there are nearly 90 varieties and more than 6000 strains of red plums, white plums and green plums to form a new scenery there. Covering an area of 427 hectares, it is one of the biggest plum gardens in China and one of the 16 new scenic spots in Kunming.

Travel information: 1) Ticket price: 20 RMB/adult; 2) Opening time: 7:30 a.m. -17:30 p.m. 3) Playing time suggetion: 1 day; 4) Best time to visit: all the year round especially the early time of the winter when you can appreciate the beautiful plum blossom there. 5) Ways to go there: take the city buses no.9, 71, 115 to the Black Dragon Pool stop.

Dianchi Lake

Dianchi Lake, located in the southwest of kunming, also called kunming lake or pond, is the largest plateau lakes in yunnan province and also the sixth largest fresh water lake in China. The view of the Dianchi lake is very beautiful with wide water surface.

The evaluation for the Dianchi lake view is various, and it may not be as the beautiful scenery in Guilin, but it is rare to see such wide waters on the plateau. Standing on the Longmen, you can have a birds’ eyes view of the beautiful Dinanchi Lake, which enjoys the reputation of the “Plateau Pearl”. You can also take a boat cruise on the Dinachi Lake to enjoy more charming scenery, along which are West Mountain Forest Park, Buddha Mountain, DaGuanLou, Haigeng Sports Park, Yunnan Ethnic Village and so on. It is undoubtedly an ideal place for sightseeing, entertainment and vacation.

Dianchi Lake

Dianchi Lake was influenced by tertiary Himalayan crustal movement so that constituted the plateau limestone fault depression lake with 1886 meters above sea level and surrounded by dozens of mountains which are surrouded by waters under the daylight and sky cloud to form a beautiful natural picture. Its charm is the change of the cloud according to the sky wthin one day, and you will see various fantastic scene there. Haigeng Park and Cui Lake will gather tens of thousands of black-headed gull in winter every year and the black-headed gull flying on the lake surface is the highlight of the Dianchi Lake in winter.

Travel information: 1) Ticket price: 10 Yuan/adult; 2) Opening time: 24 hours; 3) Best time to visit: spring and summer time for sightseeing and autunm and winter time for the gull feeding; 4) Playing time suggestion: 2 hours; 5) Ways to go there: take the city buses No.24 and 44 to the Haigeng Park.