How Mirages are born
Residents of the ancient yanty, located in the mountains of the Chinese province Shandong, are accustomed to look at the world from top to bottom. Six centuries ago it was most convenient to do from the top of the watchtower built under the emperor. True, on on-law on her guards did not have time to enjoy the beautiful review – their task was to follow the goat enemy.
As soon as the guards noticed the ship of the enemy, the fire was lit on the tower. Its alarm system was on the lower yarus of the city, which grew up from the fishing village and did not forget her traditions. One of them was to breed on the banks of the signal bonfires, warning fishing vessels about the approach of pirates, which was quite frequent at the time of opium wars. This custom is owed and its name: Yantai in translation means "Stringing platform".
Now "early warning system" Other. However, the wanderers who come to Yantai, who became a city with a large port and semi-million people, can climb the tower like a former watchdog. This is a concrete tower with a lighthouse, standing in the park Yanteishan. The high-speed elevator assumes travelers for several tens of meters up. From the observation deck there is an amazing view of the harbor and marine smooth. Even the yellow sea is blue and very beautiful.
If you are lucky, you can see how the Mirage is born on the horizon. But it is best for this mysterious natural phenomenon to watch from another country seaside city, located 70 kilometers to the north-west of Yanty. An hour of the path by bus on the high-speed road, and you will find yourself in Penla. You can walk on it without a guidebook. It is impossible to make a mistake in the direction: if the street with a slope down, then it will bring to the sea.
On the waterfront – the stone composition "Eight celestials", Removed Characters Mythology of Taoism. Eight saints crossing the turbulent sea, express the idea of Taoism about how important to help the needy and suffering and respond to good good. Evil turns around against the one who created him.
On the right, high pagoda and the temple complex, built in honor "Big eight". I hope the readers guessed that it is not about the ambitious leaders of the most developed countries, whose life is subordinate to the political conjuncture, but about the eight of the celestial, over which the vulneral time is not powerful: their habitat is eternity.
True, as I was convinced, it does not prevent the use of their images for purely earthly goals – as a trading brand. Hanging guests on the way to the temple can offer "Banquet Basyanian" (all the same "Eight of clarity"). The set consists of 8 cold and 8 hot meals, and even soup out of 8 types of marine products, of which I managed to identify only shrimps and trepalg.
Fans of exotic offer red translucent pieces of meat. The story of this delicacy called "Oslina in Penalian" goes back to the middle of the XIX century. At the same time a surcharge was born in Penla: "Delicious dish in the sky – Dragon, and on Earth – Oslaynina".
But in Shanghai – I will allow myself to distract me – I was not good. There one restaurant offered visitors under the guise "Tiger meat dishes" The same downtown, seasoned to give it a specific taste. Tigrina urine.
In China to huge striped cats special attitude. They are considered a symbol of strength, royality. Besides tiger "Ingredients" Evoid in great demand in traditional medicine. If some skeptics have doubts about the origin of tigrine meat, they confidently report that the Siberian Tigers Park is located in a kilometer from the restaurant. This does not mean that they are all doomed to excitement, but information is taken note.
Temple ensemble "Eight clarity" Lined on an artificial peninsula. Visitors meet the saturated sea lions, undressed in the pool. There is also a two-story pavilion with an exposure of antique Chinese painting and sculptures. But "Nail program" – Seventive Pagoda, every floor which is guarded by sculptural characters of Taoist mythology. The roofs of the temples and figures of Bogomoltsee, having bursting bows before the sanctuary. Each of the aromatic sticks with smoking incenses thick with hand, but from the top floor of the pagoda they look like matches. All as on vintage chinese paintings.
If you turn on the embankment to the left, you will see a rock with a toothed fortress wall. Before it from the center of all kilometers, but maritime pleasants can choose a speed boat. 20 minutes racing on the waves and you are postponed from one legend to another.
On Mount Danyayishan, Penlaic Terem. Ancient Chinese legend claims that the celersists lived there and that a man who had a sacred electric experience and dedicated to the Dao doctrine on the mountain will find immortality. That is why the emperors of all epochs dreamed of visiting this sacred place.
The architectural complex of Penglage, which includes a dozen temples, idols and pavilions, began to erect in 1061, and the construction stretched in a century. Girls-excursions "Pass" through these memorial objects one group of tourists after another. Before the gates of the temple ensemble, I notice a group of country houses of Far Eastern. The Chinese guide commands: "Girls – right, boys – left. Now jump through the threshold!" And our tourists diligently perform "Jump-Skoking".
The main building of the ensemble – the Penlaic Terem himself, is a two-story wooden structure. On the front of the inscription – "Penglaig", Reproducing facsimile of the famous Calligrapher those Bao (1752 – 1824). The second floor is a hall, acquired by balustrade, from where you can admire the sea and clouds. When a thick fog descends on the water surface, it seems that we are saving in the clouds.
This is how Penghage is described in the novel of the Writer of the Qing Epoch (1644 – 1911) "Travel Lao Tsanya": "We are extremely beautiful. Its painted rafters as it should be in the clouds, his pearl blinds resemble rain threads. You look at the southwest – there are urban fantas, haze from pipes over them; Look to the east – sea waves are raised there. "
In a gazebo with a horizontal stele, strings are engraved from poem "Mirage", written by the poet Dongpo (1037 – 1101):
"Although the celestials I have not met,
But in the place of the sacred, I only visited
And the lines of the earth folded there,
Penlay Dedicated them".
Perhaps the most unusual of what can be observed in Penlae is Mirage, the phenomenon has long been explained by science, but continuing to hit the imagination. The optical effect is based on a special distribution of air density by vertical. Under certain conditions, this leads to an imaginary image horizon. However, all these boring explanations instantly forget when you become a witness to a miracle that is born in your eyes.
In Penla, Mirages are spectators strictly on the calendar – in the season when summer comes to shift. After the rains the sun shines especially bright. A light breeze blows, fishing boats slide on the water, and the seagulls are spinning over the waves. And on the background of these natural scenery to the north of the terme, as if the mirage appears on the order – the same Penglay, who lives in the legends.
Where the sky merges from the edge of the sea, there are wonderful mountains, and there are elegant arbors and pavilions that look out from under dark green crowns of pines and cypresses. And then suddenly in the air, rocky shores are formed, isolated from the stones of the most bizarre forms. Do not have time to enjoy this picture, how her in the blink of an eye is replaced by bridges, houses and strings of carts. And it seems that you really got into "Corner of clarity".
However, on this inspection "Chinese Kiteja" does not end. The cable car raises the booths with tourists even higher. Where the Guanlantine Pagoda rises. From her visible boundless marine spaces. Just here is the conditional border between the Bohaji Bay and the Yellow Sea. At the foot of the Pagoda – the symbolic designation of the watershed: two dragon play with the sea pearl.
The gatekeeper invites you to hit the large bronze bell, suspended on the second floor of the pagoda. The crimson sun hides behind the horizon, and over the yellow sea is floating raw ringing.
