The Construction of the Soul Retreating Temple (also known as Lingyin Buddhist Monastery, or simply Lingyin Temple) started in 326 A.D.. Tugged away in mountains circling the West Lake, the Buddhist monastery sits in a valley flanked by North Peak and Peak Flying from Afar where craggy rocks are thickly covered by verdant woods and a limpid brook bubbles its zigzagging way through valley.

Magnificent in architectural structure, the ageless temple houses a great variety of Buddha figures heavenly and exquisite. The Temple for the Soul's Retreat is famed as the First Mountain in Southeast China for hundreds of years all over China.

At its best days, the temple was really magnificent in size. On its sloping compound stood nine storied buildings and eighteen pavilions. More than 1,000 dormitories housed over 3,000 monks. During the Emperor Kangxi's reign in the Qing Dynasty, the Temple of the Soul's Retreat was named as the Zen Temple of Clouds and Woods. The temple looks what it is today through a series of construction projects over decades on the basis built in the evening period of the Qing dynasty.

On the compound's central axial line stand the Front Hall (Heaven King's Hall), the Great and Magnificent Hall, and the Pharmaceutical Master Hall. The Buddhas figures inside these three Halls are most popular with pilgrims and tourists.

The most admired Buddha figures are Buddha and Guanyin, or Goddess of Mercy, in the Great and Magnificent Hall and Wei Tuo, chief guard of Buddha and Buddhist doctrines, presumably carved out of the trunk of a single camphor tree in the south Dynasty, and Buddha's four major warrior attendants, colored clay sculptures in the Front Hall.

Scattered outside and inside the temple compound are numerous relics left from ancient times. The leading relic is the Pavilion of Cool Brook erected in the mid Tang Dynasty over 1,000 years ago. From the pavilion down we have the stone pagoda and the stone storage for Buddhist scriptures, both built in the Five-Dynasties, the Pavilion of Greens first built in the Southern Song Dynasty, the pagoda of Hui Li the Master that was erected in the Ming Dynasty.

The temple houses various Buddhist literature and treasures including the scriptures written on pattra leaves, the gold-plating bronze Buddha statue fabricated in the Eastern Wei Dynasty, the Diamond Sutra copied by Dong Qichang in the Ming Dynasty, a wood cut edition published in the Qing Dynasty.

A couplet hung on the grand door of the Heavenly King Palace reads: Let us wait sitting on the threshold of the temple, for another peak may fly from afar. Smiles appear welcoming, for the brook is gradually warming up to the springtime. When tourists admire the couplet, they can't help but grin.

The compound of the Tomb and Memorial Temple of Yu Qian sits at the foot of Mountain Santai. It contains two sections: the tomb and the memorial temple. Both Yu Qian's tomb and Yu Fei's tomb and their memorial temples are in the memory of people through ages.

Yu Qian (1398-1457) was born in Qiantang (now Hangzhou). He was upright and honest. He dared to plead on people's behalf after he held an official post. He promoted the beneficial and abolished the harmful.

In 1449, Emperor Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty was captured as the prisoner in the Tumu Revolt. The capital of Ming Dynasty was greatly shocked. Yu Qian, then the minister of the war ministry, enthroned Zhu Qiju, the younger brother of Yingzong, as the Emperor of Ming Dynasty.

Yu Qian led the military forces and civilians and won the battle of safeguarding Beijing, capital of the Ming Dynasty.

In 1457, Yingzong was restored to the throne and Yu Qian was executed with false accusations. He was rehabilitated seven years later. His remains were moved back to Hangzhou and buried. A memorial temple was built nearby the tomb.

In 1998, the Government of Hangzhou appropriated a large funds and had Yu Qian's tomb and memorial temple rebuilt. New stone statues are set up in front of Yu Qian's tomb. On display inside the memorial temple are stories in fresco and relief about Yu Qian, calligraphic creations and paintings, weapons and official garments of Ming Dynasty in memory of Yu Qian, the late sage of Hangzhou and a model of honest and upright official.

“Thanks to Yue Fei and Yu Qian, people start to enjoy the real beauty of the West Lake again.”

The tomb and memorial temple of Yu Qian radiates with eternal light of patriotism spirit of Chinese nation.

On August 1664, the third year in the reign of Emperor Kangxi of Qing Dynasty, the famous general Zhang Cangshui who had resisted Qing Dynasty died a martyr as a result of a traitor's betrayal.

His remains were buried secretly by his bosom friends at the foot of Nanping Hill of the West Lake. The inscription on the gravestone simply read “the tomb of Mr. Wang”. This grave was not marked with a real name out of fear and was mysterious for nearly 80 years before the truth was made known.

He was another hero buried in the beautiful scenery just after Yu Fei and Yu Qian. Zhang Cangshui (1620-1664) was born in Yin County of Zhejiang. In the last years of Ming Dynasty, he organized a militia force to fight the army of the Qing dynasty. He once joined hands with Zheng Chenggong and the united army controlled the Yangtze River, conquered Wuhu and besieged Nanjing. His victories won him a great reputation in southeast China. He failed because his army was greatly outnumbered and therefore overpowered by the army of Qing Dynasty. Zheng Cangshui retreated to an island in the eastern China Sea, still planning to rise again with a new army. He was captured when someone revealed his whereabouts to the Qing Dynasty government. He refused to defect and was executed. The tomb and memorial temple of Zhang Cangshui were rebuilt in 1985. The memorial temple is in a style imitating the traditional ancestral hall typical of the south of Yangtze River valley. In the middle of the temple sits the statue of Zhang Cangshui.

On display both in and outside the temple are inscriptions of Zhang's poems and many horizontal inscribed boards and antithetical couplets in Zhang's memory written by later generations. The tomb is to the left side of the memorial temple. The tomb passage is spacious. In front of the tomb stands a stone archway and there are stone tigers and stone horses standing on the both sides of the tomb. The pines and the cypresses set each other off.

A spring bubbles out limpid water disregard of day and night in the verdant Daci Hill near the West Lake. The legend has it that two mighty tigers from Mountain Hengshan ran around the spot and a spring appeared. The spring is named after the running tigers. A 
senior monk came to stay in the hill and then had a dream of the story in advance.

As a matter of fact, the Tiger Spring forms as the result of the underground water seeping through veins and cracks within quartz sandstone that will not be eroded by acid materials. Due to its low content of mineralized ingredients and high percentage of radon, a radioactive element, the highly pure water is an ideal beverage for health. The Tiger Spring and the Dragon Well Tea are known as a natural match born to fit each other and showcase each other's best. What is more, the spring water has high surface tension. Put a coin into a bowl filled up to the rim, and the water rises three millimeters above the bowl edge, but it does not overflow.

There used to be a Buddhist monastery near the Tiger Spring. Today, the spring and the temple and the surrounding twisting valley have been turned into the Tiger Spring Forest Park with a Li Shutong Memorial located on the premises. When locals pondered over all tourist attractions in Hangzhou for the new top ten scenic spots, the Tiger Spring was chosen.

The Yellow Dragon Cave alias a cave with doors or flying dragon cave hides itself deeply at the north foot of the Qixia Hill. Abnormal cliffs tower over deep valleys, and it is an ideal cradle for the Taoists to meditate for hidden meanings of lives. 
The centerpiece of the scenic attraction is a limpid pond with rockwork and pavilions perching beside. On the perpendicular wall of a cliff is a sculpted dragon head. The dragon looks dignified and mighty with its eyes popping out and nose facing skyward and whiskers arching upward. Then out of its open mouth pours out a stream of tiny waterfall, vanishing into the pond, splashing up harmoniously musical notes.

Some craggy rocks stand in the pond, hinting at the opening sentence of a popular ancient prose by Liu Yuxi, a famed poet in the Tang Dynasty. The prose begins with “the water is full of magic if there is a dragon in it no matter whether the water is shallow or not.” The tourist attraction has become an antique style theme park.

Being located at the foot of the Qixia Hill, the site is covered by bamboo groves spreading all over the hilly slopes. All the paths are inside green bamboo shadows. Bamboo leaves whisper when a breeze moves through. Bamboo shoots germinate in early April drizzle. When the sun shines, the young shoots come out almost everywhere. Now at the foot of a wall covered with lichen, now by a zigzagging path, now on the slanting slope in a big way, now in the back garden. Some of them push away heavy stones on their way out of the dark wet soil. Some of them stand in twos and threes, vying each other for more sunshine and space.