Text | Shushu
If You describe Shanghai as a pyramid, Jing'an Temple, which is worth 5.8 billion yuan and is the most expensive temple in the world, should be the top of this pyramid.
When I drove the Cadillac XT5 to see it, half of the temple was shining with sunlight, and the other half was blocked by the tall buildings across the road, and if you want to see its golden splendor, it would have to be at night.
Came to Shanghai for more than two years, I also did not go into the Jing'an Temple to burn incense, daily 50 yuan / Zhang, every New Year's Holiday 150 yuan / Zhang ticket is a huge obstacle between me and the Buddha, there is a request for the Buddha when I often go to the ticket 5 yuan Longhua Temple, the last six months of temple renovation directly do not want tickets, Buddha will forgive me for my poverty.
Scattered around the top of the Jing'an Temple Tower are a number of high-rise shopping malls and countless cafes on the ground, where you can see Shanghai's most dreamy day and night, without exaggeration.
If you come to Shanghai, you must come to this area, because Jiuguang Department Store, Rui Ou Department Store, Jing Pin, Jing'an Kerry Center, L'Oréal Building, Puli and Swissotel, and Shangri-La in the distance are all teaching you how to spend money elegantly.
And I parked the XT5 at Rui Ou Department Store for two hours, charged me 55 parking fees, fortunately not at my own expense, otherwise I would have 5555.
Jing'an Temple is the very center of the Jing'an Temple business circle, the strict central axis of the building, from south to north is located in turn is the Mountain Gate Bell Tower Drum Tower, Daxiong Treasure Hall and Dharma Hall, the Mountain Gate facing south, in front of the door of the three "Jing'an Temple" subordinate characters are the famous calligrapher Mr. Deng Sanmu mentioned in 1945.
Now see the Jing'an Temple is in 1998 after the overall reconstruction of the building, its history is simply, was founded in the Three Kingdoms Wu Emperor Sun Quan Chi Wu decade, the temple site was originally on the north bank of the Wusong River, the original name of Hudu Chongyuan Temple, the Tang Dynasty once changed its name to Yongtai Zen Temple, the Northern Song Dynasty Dazhongxiang Fu began to change its name to Jing'an Temple in the first year, the temple was repeatedly repaired, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom war also destroyed it once.
You say that it is a place of Qing cultivation in the downtown, and indeed it is a place of fragrant incense surrounding the Sound of Buddha; you say that it is the best representative of this land of drunken gold fans, the Jing'an Pagoda with gold on the surface holds a golden dragon and golden elephant, and the eight golden lions around you are all energetic and energetic, and everything here is naturally expensive.
Walk around the streets of Jing'an Temple, east, west, north and south, and you will understand the true meaning of "I SH", if there is only one last business district left in Shanghai, it must be the Jing'an Temple business district.
Let's start with the sunny part of Jing'an Temple, this road is the east-west Yuyuan Road on the side of Jing'an Temple, driving into here, the first impression is that the silhouette of Jing'an Temple hit the wall on the side of The Kumitsu Department Store.
In 2011, when the wall was still an advertising space, Jing'an Temple complained to Kumitsu Department Store because the appearance of female elements in the advertising space would cause monks to meditate unintentionally, and the property required Kumitsu to advertise this external wall to avoid female portraits and any elements about women.
You see, in order not to disturb the family Qing cultivation place, how clean this wall is now, after all, it is really difficult to find an advertiser without female elements now, and Kumitsu's wave of giving up interests only to support the behavior of Buddhist disciples Qing xiu can be nominated as a good neighbor for China.
Walk past the vegetarian restaurant at the bottom of Jing'an Temple, in front of the former residence of Liu Changsheng, the five-star red flag flutters in front of this bungalow, and through the corridor of years, a story about the French Concession has been written here.
Across the road, is Chinese mainland's first Burger King, to take pictures of it always think of the Wukang building I visited last week, although it sounds completely out of touch, but the sun sets off it standing at the intersection of Jiaozhou road is really imposing.
Looking further down the road across from Burger King, you'll suspect you've never lived a real life.
I was shooting around two o'clock in the afternoon on weekdays, and the outdoor seats of the coffee shop were full of men and women, bathed in the sun with them, and each person sat comfortably with a cup of coffee, and I asked my colleagues who were shooting together, do the urban beauties in Shanghai have to go to work?
He looked at me and replied, "It seems that others don't have to go to work", which is also true, and the corners of his mouth show a smile that is satisfied with the passing line of the urban beauty.
This small section of Yuyuan Road opened to the bend, ending with the sculpture of "armless man splitting a ball" at the entrance of the crystal product, I couldn't understand what it meant, I tried to know what it meant, maybe there are few sculptures in the world that can tell the meaning, only from the structure of the chest bulge is a woman.
The theme of jingpin interior changes every once in a while, the same is the Maserati 4S shop on the first floor facing the street, when I drive the XT5 around, a Martha is behind us, when the same frame, I still feel that its owner flavor is stronger.
Around the direction of Jing'an Temple, Yuyuan Road turns south to Changde Road, a few steps away there is Changde Apartment, after 1939 Zhang Ailing and her family lived here for 5 years, the famous roof photo of Zhang Ailing is taken here.
Even if you don't understand the bond between this apartment and Zhang Ailing, the Qiancai Bookstore on the first floor will forcibly drag you into the world of this "Republic of China female hooligan", the window looks at Zhang Ailing's works and places a whole exhibition area, and at the end of the main entrance of the bookstore is also a three-dimensional character card of Zhang Ailing.
Changde Road this small section is very short, Changde apartment used to be almost a traffic light, we also arrived at the Jing'an Temple is located in the east-west direction of Nanjing West Road, most people describe Jing'an Temple, are called Jing'an Temple located on Nanjing West Road.
The south side of the road is my parking Rui Ou department store, the north side of the road is the main entrance of Jiuguang Department Store, and jingpin what shop may be different from the merchants, Rui Ou and JiuGuang's shops almost you can call the name, Rui Ou door now huge billboard belongs to Ami, the New Year I rewarded myself with a sweatshirt is its home, the unremarkable black sweatshirt, easy to cross out my 2400 pieces at checkout, the evil consumerism can always make people buy happiness.
Compared with Jiuguang and Jingpin and the Kerry Centre opposite, my favorite thing to visit is Rui Ou, leaving aside the balcony and the large floor-to-ceiling window towards Jing'an Park, the atmosphere of the shops on the first floor is what you can feel.
The opposite Kumitsu Department Store is different from the exquisite art revealed by Rui Ou, and the smell of luxury and grace emanating from Hisamitsu's bones is magnificent.
Jiuguang Department Store opened in 2004, is also Shanghai's earlier high-end shopping malls, the negative layer is Shanghai's early high-end imported supermarket, which has Guo Jingming wrote "Jiuguang negative layer to buy 48 yuan 12 small tomatoes, gently thrown into the shopping basket", that is the imported small tomatoes that I am reluctant to purchase now, but I have seen many Shanghai aunts in and out of here.
I have never seen such a magical shopping mall atmosphere again, even in Beijing, where I have been living for more than twenty years and have been compared with Shanghai, in a shopping circle with such a dense concentration of shopping malls, each shopping mall can also make its own extremely unique character, which is the ultimate in art.
When you come out of Rui Ou or Jiuguang on Nanjing West Road, you can hear the singers on the side of the road, at the entrance of Jing'an Park, I have been a few times the singers are constantly changing, considering that everyone has a blue work card on them, they may be able to sing here for a period of time through what application.
Once passing by, the female singer who sang in residence sang Zhou Shen's "Big Fish", stopped and listened for a while, the song was melodious, and the rope of time was loosened, and it was the Jing'an Park full of stories behind her.
The main entrance of Jing'an Park is almost facing the main gate of Jing'an Temple, and many times I have passed Jing'an Park during the day, and perhaps I can summarize it with a few key words, "not big", "many internal buildings", "Eight Scenic Gardens", "full of small sculptures", "middle-aged and elderly uncles and aunts exercising", "surrounding office workers who eat simple meals and take a nap", and "cats running around the park".
The predecessor of Jing'an Temple Park is the Jing'an Temple Road Cemetery built here in the public concession, which was also commonly known as "Foreign Grave Mountain", in 1953 the Municipal People's Government invested 180,000 yuan to convert the cemetery into a park, and the two rows of tall plane trees at the entrance of the park are really centuries-old trees, as early as 1897 when the cemetery was built, these plane trees were already there.
Some people may feel a little uncomfortable when they hear this, but everything is ok from the fact that every school I grew up with has had similar predecessor experiences.
Now the National Cemetery still leaves a trace is the Pavilion of the Ten Thousand Cemeteries on the south side of the park, do not think about that aspect, in fact, there is a bit like the design of the ancient Greek temple is not well, every afternoon there are uncles in the middle of the marble countertop playing cards and chatting.
Although Jing'an Park is not large, it is still very shanghainese to take a quiet stroll.
There is an outdoor tea restaurant next to the north gate of the park, full of seats is the daily norm, there is a Balinese restaurant inside the park, and there is an outdoor café by the lake, no matter where you order a drink, sitting for an afternoon is a chic fun.
As the park within the park inside Jing'an Park, the Eight Scenic Gardens are to be charged separately, the entrance fee is 3 yuan, when I visit here, it has been nearly night and I have not gone in, several cats and cats probe the brain at the entrance of the Eight Scenic Gardens, and the cats in Jing'an Park are not afraid of people for their casual freedom.
As for what is in the Eight Scenic Gardens, from the bamboo fence, you can see eight small attractions such as Hudulei, Chen Chaojun, Luzidu, Chiwubei, Yongquan, Luyun Cave, Pulpit, shrimp pond and so on.
There is also a tea house in the courtyard, and when you come here in the spring and summer to ask for tea by the pool, you must not remember that you are the most expensive place in Shanghai.
The most iconic in Jing'an Park is the bronze statue of Cai Yuanpei and the bronze statue of the rhinoceros series from Taiwanese sculptors.
If you don't go into Bajingyuan for a nap, it will take less than 20 minutes to walk through Jing'an Park, but the moment you walk out of Jing'an Park and be surrounded by the golden Jing'an Temple and the surrounding shopping malls, you will feel as if you have just paced through another unreal world.
From Jing'an Park, cross the traffic light and turn, that is, another north-south road of Jing'an Temple, Huashan Road.
The temple body of Jing'an Temple occupies all the roads on this side, and when you reach the intersection with Yuyuan Road, opposite the Paramount Ballroom that once swept the beach, where you used to sing and dance all night, Jing'an Temple stood on the other side of the road and did not extinguish the incense all night.
You ask me what is Shanghai, walk around the Jing'an Temple in less than an hour, you will understand that this is Shanghai, 24 hours a day here the busiest is always the traffic police Shu Huang.
To say something funny to you, there are still many urban legends hidden around Jing'an Temple.
Just like the most famous Jing'an Spring around the street of Jing'an Temple, some people say that it is pressed on top of a "yellow spring", and later because the Eight-Nation Alliance entered China, the British in order to build a road to shrink the main gate of Jing'an Temple into tens of meters, resulting in the spring well exposed to the road outside the temple, so there was a terrible legend of Jing'an Temple, the most well-known is the mysterious incident of Lin Jiazhai No. 37.
For example, at the beginning of the Burger King's Jiaozhou Road, where the 2010 teacher's apartment fire incident was raging, you can still search for a lot of relevant information, and since then there have been many "supernatural rumors" coming out.
In recent years, the incident that has made Jingpin out of the circle is the 2017 Jingpin jumping incident, a jumper jumped from the top of jingpin and smashed it into the dining table of the second basement floor in the middle of the patio, and later the table in that position was roofed.......
It is a bit far to pull here, all the expensive and noisy areas have their own urban legends and stories, Jing'an Temple is never quiet, which is the background of Jing'an Temple and its radius.
It is about Shanghai, visiting the Jing'an Temple, but the car that accompanies me can not fall, that is, this white Cadillac XT5, which is seriously exposed in the sun, choose it to visit the Jing'an Temple is also a consideration.
Only those who understand Shanghai understand the paper drunk fans around Jing'an Temple, and the same is true of Cadillac, and only those who understand its century-old history know what this brand that has been determined to "make the best car" since its inception has brought us to this day.
I remember Cadillac launching the world's first all-inclusive model in 1905, and before that all cars were semi-open;
I remember cadillac becoming the first company to equip cars with electronic starting, lighting and ignition devices in 1912, and for this achievement it also became the first car company to be awarded the title of "World Standard" by the Royal Automobile Club;
I remember the "Army One" in the US president's car, the door alone used 20 cm thick armor material, weighing the same as the Boeing 757 hatch;
I remember the Sixteen concept car that appeared in automotive magazines very early, the 16-cylinder engine can provide at least 1000 horsepower, the dashboard is a Cadillac sitting clock from Bulgari' hand, when you don't need the engine to output too high dynamics, you can choose to turn off 8-12 cylinders;
Cadillac has a lot of history, and when the XT5 was launched in early 2016, it was definitely the most special impression on it, because that time it gave everyone a word called "will", Cadillac explained that in the English word, the city is city, the city is the metropolis, and the better and more advanced are the obvious qualities.
Cadillac's ultimate goal in giving volkswagen the word Amway is, of course, to tell everyone that the XT5 is a better and more advanced "metropolis SUV."
It turns out that both the original XT5 at the time and the latest XT5 of 2021 that I am driving now, with its 48V mild hybrid, can afford the word "will."
Enough dazzling exterior design, picky out a little detail of the American strong luxury interior, enough out of the BBA model of the same level of internal use space, enough to gallop in the metropolis of 2.0T + 9AT power combination, the maximum power of 174kW, the maximum torque of 350N·m, after adding 48V light mix is more fuel-efficient.
The whole of Shanghai, even the Bund, may not be as worthy of the word "will" as the Jing'an Temple, so the Cadillac XT5 and this appointment at the Jing'an Temple are a higher meeting of the soul and the soul.
When I was driving the XT5 and about to leave Jing'an Temple, Chao Chao told me that this pedestrian bridge at the intersection of Jing'an Temple was about to be demolished because of its lack of practicality, because after the opening of Line 14, it would be more convenient and safe for pedestrians to take the underpass.
After the overpass is demolished, there is no longer a place like it that can see the panoramic view of Jing'an Temple and the elevated traffic flow of Yan'an Road.
Unfortunately, when I heard this news, I was already leaving under the bridge, and maybe I would return here soon and take another photo of jing'an temple on the overpass.