Tianlong Compound

Tianlong Compound
Originally uploaded by paulbrockmann.

Thanks to Griff Dye for pointing this rather hidden compound out to me. It’s hard, of course, to miss the pagoda from just about anywhere in town, but since the three pagodas I’ve already shown you quite dominate both the skyline and the guidebooks — and this one doesn’t even appear in some of the guidebooks — it’s easy to miss it. Mercifully I was tipped off to check
it out, and I saw the pagoda and can read the characters so I realized what this was. It’s technically closed for renovation (such a common story in China these days…), which gives it such a lovely empty, moderately abandoned feel. As you’ll see though, there’s some really lovely architecture here.