Can you tell me how to get to Jing’an Temple?

Sunday was a nice, sunny day, so I decided to visit the Jing’an Temple. It took about an hour to walk there from the hotel—basically 4.5km (about 2.8mi) west on Yan’an Elevated Highway (well, the pedestrian portion). 

My route from the hotel (right-hand side) to the Jing'an Temple
(left-hand side), courtesy of Google Maps.

I could have taken the Metro and cut the travel time to 20 minutes, or a taxi and cut the time to 11 minutes, but you can’t stop a train or taxi to get pictures like this:

An ordinary streetlight? Not so! See the next picture.

Streetlights in China have countdown clocks showing how much
longer a light will be red/green; there are no yellow lights. 

Lovely little marigold in front of an apartment building.

The first gas station I've seen in Shanghai.

The main building of the Shanghai Exhibition Center.

Registration for the lingerie show going on at the Shanghai
Exhibition Center.

As I neared the place where the temple was supposed to be (according to the tourist map I picked up at the airport), I could smell the wafting fumes of burning incense—I knew I was close. I followed the aroma, and came upon a street market sponsored by a company called “lifefun” whose mascot is a winking kid in a bull costume.

lifefun!

I could see the temple in the background, but decided to scope out the market first. There were quite a few stalls selling both dried and raw meats, mushrooms, sweets, nuts, and dried fruits. It appears that lifefun was just promoting its food products, and taking advantage of a strategic location near the Jing’an Temple and the 2012 Golf Festival at a nearby hotel.

Various lifefun meats.

Fungi.

Nuts!

Cool tiled planter in the market area. 
Not for sale--part of the normal scenery.

After ambling through the market, I walked around the outside of the temple looking for an entrance. Had I continued past the market, I would have ended up there, but instead, my detour through the lifefun market led me around the entire exterior of the temple, which I otherwise may not have seen.

A long stretch of the outer Jing'an Temple wall.

An outer tower.

Gate at a side entrance.

More of the exterior.

The Temple seal.

I could still smell the incense, so I kept on walking and finally came to the entry gate where I paid 30RMB (about $5). The Jing’an Temple was built in 247 C.E., but was not given its current name until 1008 C.E. during the Song Dynasty. The temple map you receive upon entering states that the Temple was moved to its current site (No. 1686 Nanjing West Road) in 1216 C.E., but it does not say from where the Temple was moved (Internet research finds conflicting locations for the original placement). Regardless of the physical movements, the Temple was designated as one of the national key temples of Han Buddhism in 1983. It was at this time that the Temple was opened to the public.

Part of the courtyard and the steps to the Mahavira Hall.

View of the courtyard from the Mahavira Hall.

The back of the Mahavira Hall.

Amazing woodwork.

Old and new coexisting. 

In addition to the sensory overload of smells (burning incense) and sights (the architecture is amazing!), the sounds of the Temple are worth noting. Bronze bells hang from the corners of many of the rooftops of the buildings that make up the Temple. There was an occasional breeze yesterday, so the gentle sound of the bells could be heard wherever you happened to be in the Temple. 

One of many bells in the Temple.

A bell at the corner of a decorated roof.

As I was walking through the courtyard, I noticed a 1RMB coin on the ground, and almost bent to pick it up when I realized that some of the ringing I was hearing was coming from people throwing coins at a tall, bronze tower in the center of the courtyard. It is considered good luck if you are able to toss your coin into an opening in the tower. Most people were not lucky, and you run the risk of getting hit in the head by ricocheting coins by walking too close to the tower, which I learned when I got close enough to get this picture of the tower’s base:

Base of the tower.

Full view of the tower from ground level.

The tower in full with visitors throwing coins at it.

The Mahavira Hall (the Temple’s main hall) houses the Jing’an Silver Buddha, a statue of the Sakyamuni Buddha sitting on a lotus in meditation. The statue was made from 15 tons of silver and is 8.8 meters high.

Jing'an Silver Buddha.

One of the side halls of the Temple houses an 11-ton statue of Sakyamuni (the first Buddha of Buddhism) made from white jade and sitting at 3.87 meters tall. It is said that the wall of the hall had to be torn down in order to get the statue inside.

Sakyamuni.

As I was leaving, I noticed some people in a side hall gathered around what I thought was a well. I approached, and saw that it was a recessed stone basin with a circular hole in the middle at which people were tossing coins. Like the tower, it is considered good luck if you can toss your coin into the hole. This is much more challenging than it sounds; I watched five or six visitors try, and miss, multiple times.

Lots of misses. 

One of the "well" guardians.

This has been just a sampling of the over 300 pictures I took while exploring the Jing’an Temple. None of my pictures adequately captures the intricacy of the architecture, the devotion expressed through each of the statues and their halls, the mystical sensation of being engulfed by incense, or the tranquility instilled by the ringing of the bells, but at least you can see some of what captured my sense of wonderment.

Here are some highlights from my hour walk back to the hotel:

Very clever currency exchange sign. 

Roast duck anyone?

How about some pork?

Or "children's food"? (This was a candy store.)

Weddings are huge in Shanghai this time of year.

Although not a good picture, the woman is wearing platform
heel converse sneakers.

Those are the sight highlights from the walk. The story highlight is: I was walking along and was approached by two Chinese girls in what appeared, at first glance, to be Girl Scout Brownie vests. Upon closer inspection, they were volunteer vests for a local blood bank. The girls asked if I wanted to give blood. Really?! Yes, really. So, not only am I wanted for photographs, I am wanted for my blood too. I politely declined and continued on my way.