My first impression while I stepped out from my bus to the gate of Dujiangyan was irritating, it was a very fast 60 kilometers high speed train ride from Chengdu North Station to Dujiangyan city within 35 minutes, but the bus from the station to the site was maybe one of the slowest buses that took exactly 35 minutes for just less than 6 Kilometers without bad traffic! However, when I started to look around, I was starting to impress the area.

I did not enter Dujiangyan Scenic Area immediately but decide to see the old town area which has been rebuilt after the earthquake. The old town was very nice, the most impressive structure was the big, covered bridge built in Sichuan architectural style with extravagant details. Then I entered into the scenic park, the park was beautiful with small fountains, Chinese gardens and shrines. I walked along the river and had a good time by looking forts and pagodas on the cliff top on the opposite side of the river. I walked until I reached the suspension bridges and found that there was a dike restoration with many dozers tried to strengthen the ancient dikes. Since there was nothing much to see, I crossed the suspension bridge to another side of the park. This area called Yulei Scenic Park. I saw the famous Erwang Shrine, which was maybe the biggest shrine in the scenic area.

After shrine I walked along the river until I reached a pathway to Yuleishan Peak. It was a nice easy walk; along the hiking route I saw two gate forts, viewing pavilions and many shrines with lovely view of Dujiangyan scenic area, Mount Qingcheng and the whole city. At the end of hiking route was the beautiful Shidian Shrine or ten room shrines, this shrine was very unique with its design as two galleries act as a gate to the main city shrine on the hill with amazing roof decoration making this place to be my favorite spot in Dujiangyan. The way finally leaded me back to the old town and the big bridge. Dujiangyan was a nice place to walk around; the genius design of irrigation system was hard to appreciate, but I could not deny it uniqueness among the list of World Heritage Site, also I started to like Sichuan vernacular architecture, so making Dujiangyan, a fine site to spend half a day.