The Hanging Temple

The model

This set was first inspired by the Chinese Hanging Monastery. While building the large supporting mountain, I realised I could make better use of the hollow rocks, and that's where caves became a big part of the model.
The model is not meant to be culturally, historically, or religiously accurate: it's freely inspired by architectural elements of different eastern cultures, with a bit of silly modern touch.
It sits on a custom 72x40 studs base and its' about 50 studs high, for a total of 65x37x40 cm3 (25.5x14.5x16").

The caves

Monkeys onsen cave
With a natural hot bath, where monkeys keep warm. The bath can't be shared with customers. But walk through the cave to reach...
Olsen and tea-room cave
Another hot bath available to the temple visitors, with on top a quiet tea-room.
Lovers cave
A heart-shaped cave. You can enter this cave for a romantic trip, but the other end of the cave is...
Mourning giant cave
A face-shaped rock, looking like a crying giant face. Perfect to scare people away and hide a treasure!treasure!
Blue fish cave
A long, windy cave, used to dry fish and fishing nets. The larger end gets a beatiful blue light in certain moment of the day. The cave has a lot of space available on top, which naturally was converted into...
The fisherman hide-out
A cosy apartment where the fisherman lives, while guarding his nets drying on the bottom.
The hidden cave
A tiny gap in the rock, hardly visible to the sailors passing through. The perfect hide-out for ill intended individuals.

The temple
The temple respectfully integrates with the mountain preserving its natural shape. Besides the Onsen and the tea-room in the lower cave, the temple has two main rooms: a gathering room with an Irori (traditional floor fire pit), and a resting room with futons.

The temple is painted red, with golden decorations and black roof.

What's going on in this scene

Two monks are taking care of the temple and opening its tranquility to visitors.
Their little assistant is enjoying flying a large dragon lantern. It certainly looks like a real one!
Two noisy visitors just arrived by boat. The skipper is happy to drop them off finally, but the monks just realised the mistake they made by opening the temple to visitors!
A quieter visitor is still enjoying the silence in the Onsen cave. He doesn't know what's coming.
The monk master in the meantime is playing the Bell temple.
A fisherman is busy fishing, wisely ignoring all the commotion.
Under the "mourning giant" cave, someone is crawling into its hideout and check the hidden treasure chest.

Minifigures (10)

male monk
female monk
monk master
kid monk (and dragon)
fisherman
female tourist
male tourist
skipper
Onsen customer (and monkey)
ninja ...more or less

Stickers (7 designs, 9 in total)

monkey Onsen painting
2x Irori room wallpaper
tea-room banner 1
tea-room banner 2
2x fish paintings
exterior banner 1
exterior banner 2

Note: some stickers are edited from images retrieved from the web and/or AI-generated. All stickers are only meant to show the concept, and will be professionally redesigned by LEGO, as per guidelines.