Jing’an Temple

A Buddhist temple founded, by tradition, in the third century, rebuilt many times, and now sitting on one of the most expensive pieces of land in China with office towers on three sides and a metro station underneath it.

The current buildings are largely a 2000s reconstruction in Burmese teak with heavy gilding — which offends some visitors and is, in fairness, exactly what Chinese temples have always done when the money was available.

What it costs

A small admission.

⭐ You do not have to go in for the thing it is famous for. The view of the gilded roofs hard against the glass towers is from the street, and it is free.

When to go

Daytime. It is a working temple and busiest on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month.

Getting there

Jing’an Temple station on lines 2, 7 and 14 — the exits come up beside it.

If you only have an hour

Into the courtyard, round the halls, and up onto the raised terrace for the view over the wall at the towers behind. Twenty minutes is honest.

⭐ Jing’an Park across the road is free and is where the neighbourhood actually is — mahjong, dancing, and a much older stand of trees than the temple has.

What people get wrong

Expecting antiquity. The site is ancient; almost nothing standing is.