Nanguo Temple (南郭寺) in Tian Shui

On our second day in Tianshui, we were to depart in the mid afternoon, giving us plenty of time to explore a sight or two in the morning.

Looking back at my trip, I find that I may have relied too much on some Chinese blog and travel sites like Mafengwo (蚂蜂窝) and Yododo . Actually Mafengwo puts together these great guides for any city you can think of. Plus people post their travel blogs there, which is totally addictive. The problem was that it made me try to plan non-stop in my head; I did not want to miss any attraction, even if it was something that probably did not interest me. I would overthink and try to plan my trip too much, rather than just relax and enjoy whatever may happen.

I didn’t do any research on Tian Shui other than for the Grottoes before coming though. I spent my one night in Tian Shui looking up travel blogs about the city. I skipped the blogs that used too many adjectives, or talked too much about history, because I won’t understand it (My Chinese is not good enough when too many names and dynasties are involved. And if they quote a poem, forget it!) One blog recommended Nanguo Temple (南郭寺), so we decided to go there.

But if I spent some time looking at a map instead of reading people’s blogs, I may have realized that all the other attractions are located in the city center within walking distance to each other, while this temple requires a short taxi or bus ride and is slightly more inconvenient. It actually worked out fine – we spent maybe an hour at the temple, and then had time to visit the downtown area of Tian Shui.

Back to reading too many blogs though. Reading too much makes me feel like I missed certain attractions, like the Fu Xi Temple. But honestly, I have seen so many temples already, at times I wonder if I need to see another temple again, like ever.

Anyway, writing this blog forces me to look through my photos and think of ways to improve my photos. It forces me to learn and reflect on what I’ve seen. So this is what I know about the Nanguo Temple after a brief search:

• It is a rare temple that sits in the South and faces North
• It is one of the top eight attractions in Tian Shui
• Tang dynasty poet Du Fu wrote a poem about the temple in 759AD, which totally adds street cred.
• Maybe most importantly, there are two famous old trees at the temple. One tree is estimated to be 2500 years old, and is the 3rd oldest tree in China.I didn’t really read the sign when I was there, so I thought the trees were ‘only’ 1000 years old. But I just found out one of the tree branches is dead (not sure which tree), but in between the dead branch grew a new tree. How impressive! Now I’m so glad we went!
• When doing the research, I wonder if we missed a section of the temple. Oh well!

Maybe it was this tree?

Is this the tree with the ‘dependent’ tree?

We took a taxi to the temple because if you take a bus, you will have to get off at the bottom of the hill, and then climb up a hill. I remember the fare was not expensive, while the hill is probably at least a 30 minute climb. When you get to the top, the temple does offer a good view of Tian Shui. But the sky was quite smoggy.

My most interesting part of the day was snapping this photo of these sleeping dogs (they look quite like my dog Billy)

And getting to chat with this man below at the temple. He was a worker at the temple and I believe he lived there as well. His job that day (or maybe for the rest of the summer, or maybe his life) was to take out weeds with a screwdriver. Of course that was believable after I saw an old man at a luxury compound in Beijing, cutting the lawn with large scissors.

There were no weeds behind him! He did such a good job!

Photo gallery time: