The Terracotta Warriors museum is not the only attraction near Shaanxi province's Xi'an, one of the country's most touristy cities. Just an hour's ride away, stands Huashan Mountain.

My two-day trip to the mountain began at Xiyue Temple, one of the country's oldest Taoist temples, located at the foot of mountain.

Built during the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 24) in honor of the God of Huashan, it was patronized by royalty and noblemen in successive dynasties.

The temple complex is called "little Forbidden City", as all the buildings in its 120,000 square meters area are built around an axis of symmetry and conform to traditional Chinese palace architecture, as seen in Beijing's Forbidden City.

Inside the temple, its faded glazed tiles, old doors, gray walls, rusting metalwork, hard-to-read imperial inscriptions, marble railings, and age-old trees, speak of an ancient past.

Standing in Longevity Pavilion, the tallest building in the complex, I caught my first sight of Huashan.

One of the nation's five most-famous mountains, Huashan is known for its steep slopes.

The mountain's five peaks, with four of them clustered around a central one, look like a flower, explaining its Chinese name.

Few made it to the summit of any of the peaks until the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), when Taoist believers cut a rocky trail to build temples on the northern side of the mountain. To this day, the trail serves as one of two routes to the peaks.

The other route, first built by the People's Liberation Army in the 1940s, was upgraded and opened to tourists in 1996.

Most visitors take a cable car to the lowest northern peak that stands at 1,619 meters, and then climb to the eastern peak at 2,090 meters. The spectacular sunset and sunrise on the eastern peak are a must-see.

But shortly after I left the northern peak, a light rain began to fall, which not only slowed my pace to the eastern summit, but also dashed my hopes of catching this spectacular sight.

Fortunately, even on such a gloomy day, the scenery was incredibly impressive. Massive pines, cypresses, and wild flowers shading the trail were a real delight to the eyes.

Fog rising from the valley, in sharp contrast to the indigo mountains in the far distance, evoked images of a Chinese landscape ink painting.

The air was so fresh that every breath seemed to melt the fatigue in my limbs.

Going down the mountain the next morning was easier, and more fun, although the trail was quite slippery.

My trip ended with a Laoqiang Opera show, Huashan's other big draw for locals and tourists alike. The 2,000-year-old performing art is one of the country's oldest operas and still thrives in its birthplace of Quandian village, at the foot of Huashan.

In the past, only males of the village's Zhang Clan were allowed to learn and perform the opera.

It stepped into the limelight in the 1990s after being featured in Zhang Yimou's award winning film, To Live (1994).

In 2006, the opera was listed as a national intangible cultural heritage.

Laoqiang Opera shows are now staged almost every night throughout the year.

Except for traditional string and percussion instruments, benches, stones, big bowls and other items of everyday use double as musical instruments.

The songs are high-pitched and deafening, and usually tell stories of heroes and of popular wisdom.

China Daily

(China Daily 01/20/2011 page19)