Discover Xiamen
Sunlight Rock
日光岩
The granite summit of Gulangyu, 92 metres up, with the whole island, Xiamen's skyline and the Taiwan Strait laid out below. Zheng Chenggong drilled troops here before taking Taiwan in 1661.
The story
What makes this place special
Sunlight Rock is the summit of Longtou Hill and the highest point on Gulangyu at 92.68 metres: two enormous boulders leaning against each other, one upright and one across. The hill was Koxinga's base when he held Xiamen against the Qing in the mid-seventeenth century, and the remains of his naval drill platform are on the rock, with the four characters 'Min hai xiong feng' — the heroic spirit of the Fujian sea — carved on the cliff face. Ruins of his stockade gate and the Longtou camp survive on the hillside. The popular story that Koxinga renamed the rock because he thought it finer than Japan's Nikko is a local legend rather than documented fact. Partway up stands the small Riguangyan temple, built into the rock, where the monk Hongyi kept a period of seclusion.
What you’ll discover
A steep climb from the stockade gate up through the temple and past the 'ancient cool cave' to a small railed platform on top of the boulders. From there the view covers all of Gulangyu laid out below, the Xiamen waterfront across the channel, and on a clear day the hills of Kinmen. The summit platform is tiny — a few dozen people at a time — which is why the last section is often a queue in both directions on a single narrow stair.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- Be there within the first hour of opening. The summit platform is small and the final staircase is one-way-at-a-time in practice, so by late morning you queue on the steps to get up and queue again to get down.
- The viewpoint from the temple terrace, partway up, gives you most of the panorama with none of the queue. If the top is jammed, stop there.
- The last section is stone steps through a gap in the rock with a chain handrail, in the open, and it is genuinely steep. Do not start it carrying a lot or wearing sandals.
- The Koxinga drill-platform remains and the carved cliff inscription are on the way up and are walked past by almost everyone — this is the oldest layer of the island's history and it is not the view.
- It is usually sold on a combined island ticket with other sights. If you are only going to do one paid thing on Gulangyu, this or Shuzhuang Garden is the choice, and Shuzhuang is the better one in bad weather.
When to come
First thing in the morning, and in autumn or winter when the air is clear enough to see Kinmen. Avoid midday and any public holiday.
Getting around
Not possible for a wheelchair, and hard on a bad knee. The ascent is continuous stone steps up a rock outcrop, narrow near the top, with chain rather than solid handrails and no lift or alternative route. The lower temple area is reached by fewer steps and is a reasonable target if the summit is out of the question.
Worth knowing before you go
The combination ticket is valid two days, so you can split Gulangyu over an overnight stay on the island - far better than a day trip.
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