The Fool's Paradise 愚者的樂園: 2007-12-22 ZhiShan Yan 芝山嚴 (惠濟宮)

After lunch and drinking, it was about 2 p.m., but I still wanted to stay outdoor so I decided to take a walk in Zhishan Yan. Because of my injured knee and ankle, I walked in very slow pace in the woods. According to online articles, ususally it takes 30 to 40 minutes to finish the route, but I spent almost 2 hours finishing the route.

在吃完午餐，喝點小酒後，大概已經兩點多，覺得想要繼續待在戶外，所以決定到芝山嚴散步。因為膝蓋不舒服，以龜速在林間裡漫步。網路文章說一般人大概花30-40分鐘走完步道，而我，整整花費將近兩個小時的時間。

But I think it could really take visitors 2 to 3 hours to walk there if they spend more time on observing and investigating historic and geological traces in Zhishan Yan. Zhishan Yan has profound historical events and insteresting natural environment, and there are clear information boards along the path. Visitors can learn a lot by taking a walk there. It is fantastic.

其實，我覺得用心的觀察，真的可以在芝山嚴待上兩三個小時。它有豐富的歷史背景故事和有趣的自然環境，而且它有清楚的標示和說明，一步步的仔細從中學習，還蠻棒的！

I took a lot of pictures of inforamtion for the plants and geological features there. My flikcr account has limit so I haven't uploaded those pictures. They include many plants' names and explaination of Zhishan Yan's geological features. I would make a special reports of plants or geology of Taiwan when I have more free time.

我拍攝很多關於植物和地質的說明，但因為Flickr帳號的限制，我沒有上傳。有很多植物名和地質現象，我有機會在補寫或特別弄個植物專題和地質現象專題。

I can write my religious journey in Zhishan Yan, I feel it's quite interesting. In Zhishan Yan, there is a temple, Huiji Gong. I learned few things by visiting the temple.

我先寫我我的宗教之旅好！我覺得蠻有趣的。
在芝山岩，有座三級古蹟惠濟宮。我從中學習到不少好玩的東西。

Huiji Gong is a temple which combines Taoism and Buddhism, followers worship gods from those two religions. I think what Mingde has said is quite accuate. The temple is some kind of department store that followers only have to visit a temple and they can worship many gods and ask for many things in one stop, some kind of one-stop-shopping.

惠濟宮是道佛合祀的寺廟，所以裡面供奉的神祇是神佛都有。我覺得明德說的百貨公司的比喻很貼切。信徒只要到一座寺廟參拜，就可以一次向不同的神明祈求不同的願望，一次購足。

When I was checking the above picture, I found every decoration has a little statue on it, and every statue represents different characters in mythological stories. It would cost tremendous effort and be a time-consuming job if someone count how many statue in the temple and find out every statue's identity.

我在看這張照片時，發現每個裝飾上都有小小的人偶，代表不同的角色。如果有人有耐心的一個個計數一座寺廟裡到底有多少小人偶，然後，再辨識每一個小人偶代表的人物身份，這一定是費時費力的大工程！

惠濟宮正門和側門上，有針對諸位門神的身份和所代表的意義做說明，很有趣！寺廟是左青龍；右百虎，信徒要進龍口；出虎口。所以我從青龍側的門神開始寫起。