Diane Snider Photos

Those of you who enjoy photography will find this temple - and actually likely all other temples as well - great places for taking enjoyable photos that will be interesting to you and your friends. Photos will keep your visit here and everywhere else alive in your thought for so very much longer than if you did not have them to enjoy seeing. Be sure and take your camera!

As you wander about the central courtyard, be sure and notice the elaborate lantern-type lights that hang from many of the roofs such as here.

A worshipper has just left a floral offering in front of the enclosed figure of Buddha, seated behind panels of beautifully carved wood.

While wandering around admiring the architecture and people watching, visitors may be fortunate enough to be there when suddenly they are aware of lovely music wafting out from one of the Minnan Buddhism college buildings where the monks and their trainees are singing. Such beautiful music is always so welcome.

Tourists are welcome to visit this temple which is included on many bus tours in the Xiamen area. It is expected, of course, that such visitors will be respectful, conservatively dressed, quietly observant of those around them, and not interfere in any way with those who are worshipping.

This courtyard provides space in which worshippers can light their joss sticks and proceed to the many Buddhas to whom they will pray.

Brilliant colors and exotic architectural decoration adorn the Nan Punto Temple in Xiamen, China. Visitors of all backgrounds are welcome to come appreciate its beauty and to quietly wander among the various buildings in this Buddhist complex.

Hulishan Fortress, with its large collection of old cannons, is of particular interest to history and military buffs. It not only has the largest number of ancient cannons in China but a huge one said to be the largest cannon ever made by the Krupp Company of Germany. Visitors from everywhere particularly enjoy the lovely plantings throughout the spacious garden setting of Hulishan Fortress which, after capture by the British during the Opium War, was rebuilt by the Qing Dynasty in 1891.

Located in Fujiam Province, the seaport city of Xiamen occupies a most fortuitious location right on the coast line where the South and East China Seas meet. It combines the old city heritage of its colonial days as one of China's first treaty ports in 1842 yet is even more noted as one of China's first Special Economic Zones and thus its resultant more recent modern development and economic prosperity.

Xiamen not only provides excellent shopping for its visitors and tourists but also enjoyable and interesting sights to visit. Among many places to see are Hulishan Fortress which combines history, cannons, and gardens while Nan Putuo Temple and its Minnan Buddhism College provide an active look into Buddhism and its architecture and make a most interesting tour.