Mountain Temple

Sunny days in Chongqing are a rarity, especially from November to March. Sitting in my little home office right now I'm looking out onto a very rainy, dreary day at cars driving through puddles and fog hanging over the city. Posting these photos from our time at Hong En Si definitely makes me feel better! 

I had initially discovered Hong En Si even existed via an Instagram post. God bless the people who tag exact locations when they post photos for the rest of us, those people deserve an award. So after discovering a beautiful shot of this temple park lit up at nighttime I was determined to find it. 

We did not however, get to stay and hang around to wait and see if the temples would be lit up when the sun went down, but hiking up there was still worth it. In my previous experience, I am always the unlucky one who ends up in spectacular places on very gloomy days. Not today! 

The sun was shining as we stood atop of the final stretch staring out at the panoramic views of the city - of course for picture purposes, the temple and colorful walls were more my scene. 

Apparently, Chongqing has taken great steps towards beautifying the city and building parks in several areas. I am immensely grateful that those efforts are being made. As a girl from the East Coast of Canada, I very much require green space and sunshine to thrive. According to what I've read, this park used to be a very developed space that was later completely cleared out in order to construct the parks. 

While so many expats ventured outside of China during the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) we spent most of our time moving into a new apartment. Days like this, spent outside in the sunshine taking photos, are honestly my absolute favorite kind of days. So thankful to be able to get out and experience places like this!