Monday, February 14, 2011

Confucian Temple, Taipei, Taiwan

Once you get on the main drag, turn right onto the alley beside the Officers' Club. Continue slowly for about 800 yards and you'll come upon the Confucian Temple.

Those were the instructions we followed and they were quite accurate. We did creep along as vendors were all along the alley. Other alleys crisscrossed ours as we proceeded.

Once there, we usually had the place to ourselves. Tourism wasn't big yet in Taipei.

To get an introductory view of the temple, click HERE.


The yellow line stretches from the approximate location of the old MAAG Officers' Club on Chung Shan North Road to the Confucian Temple. It is about .4 miles long.

KuLun Street leads to the front of the garden sections of both the Confucian and Baoan (Taoist) Temples. Between the temples is the north-south DaLong Street.


The Confucian Temple and garden is at the right. At the left, west of DaLong Street is the Baoan garden. DaLong Street is pedestrian.


At the upper left is the actual Baoan (Taoist) Temple. KuLun Street is at the bottom of this picture.

From our Taiwan booklet, this page describes the Confucian Temple

Here is the main temple building inside the four walls surrounding it. The photo was taken in 1969.

This is the back cover of our Taiwan booklet.

A present-day picture of the temple

And yet another of the main building

Taken from inside the 4 walls of the temple is this shot. Turning 180 degrees from the previous picture, you see the inside of the front of the enclosure. You would be looking south.



The buildings surrounding the main temple have some beautiful architectural details.



This wall is along Kulun Street. It is part of the Confucian garden area. Behind this section of the front wall is a bridge over a small pond and stream.

To see and hear the essence of the temple, click HERE.


The bridge and pond behind the main front wall (previous picture) is shown.




This is a terrible picture, and not just because I'm in it. Here we are, back in 1969, and this is the bridge behind the garden's main wall.

Ink and glue from our scrapbook bled over onto this photo. Maybe the previous picture should not be followed by this.

Here you see a side entrance off DaLong Street which leads into the garden area.

Here we are inside the temple area.
The temple was beautiful, quiet and always inviting. 
One of Victor W. Cheng's many contributions to this blog is a diagram of the temple.

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