Taiyuan Things to Do

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If you are having a mood to ride a boat to cruise around the lake in Ying Ze Park, here is the charges:

Paddle Boat: Y40 per hour (Y100 deposit)

Electrical Boat: Y50 per hour (Y100 deposit)

Dragon Boat: Y200 per hour (Y300 deposit)

They have three docks for you to rent a boat and return. Please refer my Ying Ze Park map in my travelogue- purple stars.

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Ying Ze Park is located in the downtown of Taiyuan, on Ying Ze Street. It covers with 66.7 hectares land, one third of the land is a lake in the center, Ying Ze Street is on the north, Qin Nuan Road is on the east, Nan Sha He is on the South, and Jiefang Street is on the west.

This park was completed in January 1954, and opened to the public since June 1957. It has been restored for severe times through out the history. The park is surrounded by 130 genus garden plants; peony garden, rose garden, Yue Ji garden, Hai Tang garden, apricob garden, bonsai garden, and so on. Other attractions in the park including an aquarium, Children Room of insects, 4D cinema, Ice World, Crocodile farm, and etc.

This park has four natural regions, north lake, middle part, south lake, and south part. It has five function areas, include management area, production area, culture area, environment area, and recreational area.

I only managed to visit north side of the parks. It is a huge park, it takes hours to walk around the park and lake. If you have Children, aquarium, 4D cinema, or even Ice world would be fun to visit. If you want to visit the south lake, take the paddle boat to a small island on the south lake and enjoy the view of the lake with seven holes bridge.

And don't miss my favorite building " Taiyuan Youth Palace , 太原少年宫 " is on the north side of the lake.

Check out the map and other attraction in my " Ying Ze Park's Travelogues.

Admission: Free

In Chinese: 迎泽公园 (Ying Ze Gong Yuan)

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The Underwater World in Ying Ze Park is the largest aquarium in Shanxi Province. This 5000 square meters facility is a large scale integrated aquarium that consists of all sort of marine life especially largest rare seen thousand fishes species in northern China. You will also see seals and sea lions in this aquarium.

Opening Hours: Summer (8:30-19:30); Winter (9:00-17:30)

Admission: Adult (Y60); Children (Y40)

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Taiyuan Worker Cultural Palace (Taiyuan Gong Ren Wen Hua Gong) is located on Yiingze Street. It was first built in 1958 with total area of 60,000 square meters, and the building built-up area of 30,000 square meters. This is the largest trade union and cultural activities center in Shanxi Province. It is not only the center of provincial capital of politics, culture, sports, entertainment and other activities, also a skills training center for professional and technical personnel.

There is a square in front of the Palace, or the Palace Square. In the morning, this square is utilizes by the locals for morning exercises like dancing, Tai Chi, and etc.

During my visit in Oct 2011, this Palace was just finishing its major renovation of the Palace and square. Based on the local news, the government has spent 500million yuan for the entire renovation cost.

In Chinese: 工人文化工 (Gong Ren Wen Hua Gong)

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This modern architectural building was completed in 2004, which is the largest museum in Shanxi Province. The province government has spent 400million yuan to built this 51,000 square meters museum of four stories of exhibition halls with the largest collection of porcelain, currency, Jades, painting and calligraphy of the province. It also covers seven historical and cultural topics and five artistic topics. The historical topics includes the Cradle of Civilization, Xia, and Shang Trace, Dominance of the Jin, the Ethnic Melting Pot, Buddhist Relics, the Legacy of drama, and Shang Merchants in the Ming and Qing Dynasty. The artistic topics include Architectural Relics, Natural Beauty, Painting and Calligraphy, Ancient Coins, and Chinese Porcelain. The exhibits highlight the “bright spots” in the history and culture of Shanxi , and have broken with the traditional exhibition model to form a distinctive style that combines uses the displays to bring history to life.

Operating Hours: 9:00-17:00 (Ticket Counter is closed at 16:00)

Admission: Free (But you need to get the ticket at the ticket counter)

In Chinese: 山西博物院 (Shan Xi Bo Wu Yuan)

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Fen River divided the Taiyuan City into East and West. This river drains the center of Shanxi Province. The water flows from the Guancen Mountains of Ningwu County in northeast of Shanxi to the southeast into the basin of Taiyuan, and then south through the central valley of Shanxi before turning west join the Yellow River wast of Hejin. It is one of the two largest tributaries of the Yellow River, Wei River is another one. The river is 694km long and drains 25.3% the area of Shanxi Province.

I arrived at the Ying Ze Bridge by a bus. It is one of the bridges to connect the city between east and west as part of the highways. Underneath the bridge is the river with Parks. There were several sections of the park are quite nice with flowers, trees, and benches. The river walk was nothing much except a giant decorative dragon floating on the river. I walked toward north till I Shanxi Museum. There is a square with water fountain built as parallel with the Museum. Unfortunately, the water fountains had no water.

In Chinese: 汾河 (Fen He)

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Daxiong Baodian Temple is just next to the Twin Pagodas, and Y30 admission is covered to visit this temple. It is a two stories ancient temple, the first floor named " Daxiong Temple" and the second floor named " Sanshengge Pavilion" . There are halls on each side of the temple, Ketang Saloon and Mediation Room. The garden in the courtyard has the Peony Planted in Ming Dynasty named "Zixiaxian Peony".

This is my favorite part of Taiyuan. This ancient temple has unique architecture from the Ming Dynasty.

Daxiong Temple: This temple was built during Wanli Period from 36th to 40th year in the Ming Dynasty of Chinese Ancient Time (A.D 1608-1612). It has five halls in total, length 19.35m and depth 11.3m was built by brick without beam mount and wood, and is one of the examples of work to imitate wood construction without brick beam mount depend exquisite workmanship and special formation. At present three bronze and iron statues are being consecrated here such as Amitabha, Sakyamuni, and Oriental Senior Pharmacist.

In Chinese: 大雄殿 (Da Xiong Dian)

Sanshengga Pavilion: This Pavilion was originally called Mother Buddha Pavilion to consecrate the Mother Buddha. It has three halls, length 16.75,. depth 9.70m, was built with Ancient Chinese special construction style without beam mount, and is appraised as one rare ancient Chinese traditional building without beam mount. The Mother Buddha, Manjuist and Puto Statue consecrated here were relocated from the original Zizhusi Temple in March 1985.

In Chinese: 三圣阁 (San Sheng Ge)

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Twin Pagoda is located southeast of Railway Station. I believe this is the most famous attraction near downtown Taiyuan. These two 13-stories Pagodas have different names, Xuanwenta Pagoda and Wenfengta Pagoda.

Xuanwenta Pagoda: Xuanwenta Pagoda was created and built during Wanli Period from 36th - 40th in Ming Dynasty ( A.D 1608-1612) with plane octagon style. It has 54.78 meters height (13 stories) with one standing brick pagoda with air pavilion and is one religious building to consecrate Buddhist relic, collect Buddhist Scriptures, pay servile obeisance to the Buddha, and contains the ladder every floor so as to be spiral up the pagoda.

Wenfengta Pagoda: Wenfengda Pagoda was created and built the Wanli Period from 27th-30th in Ming Dynasty (A.D 1599-1602). It has 54.76 meters height (13 stories), and was completely built by brick in accordance with plane octagon style and imitating wood construction and ancient Chinese traditional special carved mode, and is one kind of remarkable structural building with superstition color established by the ancient local capitalists to make up the local topographic defect so as to re-energize the local culture.

You can go up to one of the towers, but you can't see much from the top because all the windows are closed up. The stairs are steep and dark with limited space to walk. If there are crowd during your visit, I advise you not to go up. It is very dangerous to have people cram inside the Pagoda.

There is a garden next to Pagodas with collection of steles that contain the handwriting of famous ancient Chinese calligraphers from various dynasties. On the east side of the Pagodas is the ancient Daxiong Baodian Temple.

Admission: Y30

Opening Hours: 8:00 to 17:00

In Chinese: 双塔寺 (Shuang Ta Si)