During mid-autumn festival one year my son and I went to Penglai. It is in Shandong Province, China. Because of time constraints we only had one full day there.
About Penglai
Penglai is on the North coast of the Shandong peninsula, which juts out into the yellow sea toward Korea. It lays at the intersection of Bohai (the bay which has Tianjin, the main port serving the Beijing area) and the Huang Hai (Yellow Sea). Since the stone age it has been inportant for trade, with an exciting history of pirates. Also, it is, reputedly, the landing where the Eight Immortals (also called fairies) arrived from over the sea.
We came over land, arriving on a bus from nearby Yantai. If we had been savvier we could have come directly from Weifang and skipped Yantai, but it was hard to understand what they were telling us at the bus station in Shouguang. After being on buses all day, I headed out to find the sea. It was lovely, and the weather was lovely; I walked the path along the shore until it was getting dark.
The one hiccup in our travel plans…
My phone rang; it was a representative from Bookings.com, there was a problem of some sort. I was already headed toward the hotel, where I had left my son napping (his favorite way to start a vacation). He called not long after to explain what was going on.
In China there are some hotels where foreigners can stay and not at others. The chain of hotels I chose had both kinds. And the place where I booked was not allowed to have us stay. They didn’t figure out there was a problem until the number of digits in our passport numbers wasn’t long enough for the number of digits they expected.
Happily, everyone was kind and they took us to a different hotel in the same chain, where we, for the same price, had a two bedroom apartment on the 26th floor with a great view. But it took a long time and I was exhausted. So we went out and got lost and ate dinner at a tiny restaurant, who knows where.
Thank goodness James speaks Chinese!
The Penglai temple complex
We spent our one full day in Penglai, primarily exploring the temple/lighthouse/museum complex. It was fascinating…
A woman lighting incense sticks. 
Tianhou, the goddess of heaven, is a special goddess who comes to those in trouble on the seas. 
I didn’t catch this god’s significance. 
The round gateway is typical of Chinese architecture. I’ve wondered if JRR Tolkein got his idea from that. 
This is typical of the guardian figures you see at the entrances to sacred areas in east Asia, but the face on his tummy is a bit unique.
The temple complex focuses on the Eight Immortals, and there are many places for people to pray for safe travels. As you can see in the gallery above, it had many elements that one sees at Chinese tradition temples. Since it was mid-autumn festival it also had many Chinese people doing the same thing we were.
I wormed my way up to see what everyone was looking at. 
Looking down: Notice my son in the corner between the two buildings. He laughs at my enthusiasm to see things.
In some ways that was kind of cool, in others it made the day a bit overstimulating for this woman of “a certain age” with jet lag (it was only day 3 in China).
The ancient lighthouse
The ancient lighthouse was lovely, but hard to photograph because of the crowds. Notice that it has roof guardians.
The museums
The museums in this complex are really good. Because of the continuous history from the stone age to the present there are many artifacts. They explain the construction of ships and they also do a very good job with life sized dioramas showing ship building and other aspects of daily life.
Boat construction. 
Sail rigging. 
Sail rigging from the back side. 
A stone age relic. 
A display showing how they find the historic evidence of trade during different periods. 
A diorama of life in ancient times.
An evening and a morning…and we had to go home.
Going back to Penglai is definitely on my list of trips to take in China. But not during a Chinese holiday!