Chenghuang Temple is just right next door of Qushui Garden 曲水园. There is also similar temple in Yu Garden. This is a temple for the town's god.
Entrance fee is RMB5 for adults and children are free.
We noticed that this temple is nearby when we were walking towards the town looking for lunch. There and then we made decision to visit it after lunch since the entrance fee is cheap.
Main entrance to Chenghuang Temple
Two golden statues lined up on left and right of the entrance
The temple is split into two separate compounds. We have taken the photos of the main compound shown below.
In the second compound, there is a small temple for the Chenghuang God and his wife. The ceiling of this temple is beautifully decorated in flowery design. There is even a room beside this temple meant for the marriage bedroom of his wife. I did not take any photos but looking into the room through a small window opening, one can see the bed and clothes hung on the closet. There is even some food offering on the table.
Just in front of this temple and the room for his wife is a mad-made pond or well. It is called the pond of longevity. It is said that in 1706 when Emperor KangXi visited this temple, he would throw a bronze coin at the hole of the gold coin in the pond. If the coin hits the hole then his trip would be very auspicious. People were seen to throw coins into the pond trying to hit the eye of the gold coin held by a stone crane.
The stone fence urrounding the pond is adorned with 12 animals from the Chinese Zodiac. Each of us taken a photo in front of our own animal Zodiac.
After visiting the lower portion of the temple, we took the staircase and went up to the upper section of the temple. From here we could see clearly the pond of longevity from the top. There is a beautiful large drawing of 八仙过海.
View from the upper section of the temple in the courtyard behind and also the corridors.
From the upper section corridor, we could see clearly the decoration on the top of the roof. There are quite a number of statues positioned at various section of the roof.
I noticed that there are 2 statues of warriors and army on each side of the roof of the main temple. One of the warrior and army statues has a 黄 flag waved and the other has a 赵 flag waved. I do not really know what is the meaning of this or what it represents. Curious why the temple roof has armies of the past olden China adorned on it.
More photos of the temple courtyard seen from the upper floor.
Like most of the temples that we have visited in Shanghai, this temple is similar whereby it has a bell and drum on each side.
The drum
The bell...
Before exiting the temple, we pass through several other artifacts on the lower corridor leading towards the entrance.
Overall we made a wise choice to enter this place. Not only is the entrance fee cheap but there are actually quite a lot of things to see inside this temple.
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