Tayuan Temple, Wutai Shan, Shanxi Province, China

As it happens when traveling, we did a spur of the moment trip up to Wutai Shan. As we were paying for our bill in Pingyao, we met a French family and friends who were renting a van and driver to take them up to Wutai Shan, one of the 5 sacred mountains in China. They invited us to join them, so we quickly packed and hopped in the van.
Marc, Celine and their daughter Juliette live in Beijing and had friends Sylvie and Fabien visiting. We enjoyed spending time with the whole group of them, and Mush made a good connection with little Juliette, posing for silly photos along the way. The journey was a bonus to us because we visited some interesting temples and wealthy Chinese family courtyards and mansions along the way. Arriving in cold Wutai Shan at night, we had some trouble finding a decent hotel, but it all worked out in the end - at a price.
The little town of Taihuai was nothing special except for the infinite amount of temples and monasteries. The most noteworthy was the Tayuan Si which was home to this huge, white stupa - basically the symbol of the area. Loads of monks chanting in the temples, and just walking around town, made for an interesting feel for the area. We toured many of the temples, interacted as we could with the locals, and met some new Canadian friends Earl and Joy from Fenlon Falls. We would spend about 5 days with them, with plenty of laughs, traveling back to Pingyao in the process. *Stub