...chomping at some Temples

So when the long weekend around moon festival arrived with loads of excitement.  Everyone was stocking up on fireworks, phuza, inyama for bbq and of course were all awaiting the arrival of Super Typhoon Usagi. 

I believe I was pretty blessed to have the most perfect day that Thursday to go on a tour in and around Kaohsiung.  Jenny our school secretary from Zhuwei branch volunteer to show me some temples that I have been dying to see. So a high 5 to Jenny!

Our first stop was a house temple in Youchang called Yang House. It is a house temple tucked away in the most narrow street, obviously only for scooters, between a apartment building a restaurant and a couple of very old houses.  It is known to be one of Kaohsiungs oldest temple houses dating back almost 300 years.

This can be confirmed by the architecture of the building and roof, which is awesome.

                                      

Yang House Temple inside and ...

...outside

Pumping...

Outside in the courtyard was a old rusted hand water pump. It brings back many memories of me as a small girl visiting my grandmother in Beaufort-West in the Karoo where everything is bone dry and having a  bore hole with a water pump classified you as rich. Such rich history and memories I simply love...

Across from the temple I located this old rusted stationary bicycle, maybe used to travel these narrow roads in it's day.

We then took a walk down the narrow street that I will rather call a path to a wider road where the most magestic temple stood. It was not only pretty, it was huge!! It was the 3 Mountain King Temple. I could tell it was new, because it was very modern.There was a hype of activity with people coming and going to worship and bringing baskets of fruit as offerings.

Entrance of the 3 Mountain King Temple

The inside of 3 Mountain King Temple

An assortment of offerings...

The Topic around the offerings brought to the temple had me intrigued. I made this a discussion during my Teachers conversation class the week after. My first question of course was: What happens to all this fruit and pastries? The answer was: Apparently you make up your basket with offerings, mostly with goods that symbolizes your needs. You do your prayers or meditate and then you take your basket back home with you...

Don't ask me why but for some reason I don't understand this and find it very strange. I mean a offering is a offering, you can't give something and then take it back again...

I have also found out that there is different kind of offerings which I spotted in and around the temples.

You can bring flowers which is a symbol of everything that is impermanent in life. (cycle of life: birth, death, rebirth)

Incense which purifies the air and to show Buddhist teaching can be spread across the world ( as you can see in pictures it gets burned in abundances) 

Fruit which is a symbol of taste. Of course different fruit as offering means different needs.

Water that symbolizes the necessity of life.

Candles which gives the sense of sight.

And at the temple they create music with a bell that they ring to indicate the start or end of prayer,this creates karma and it symbolizes hearing.

Outside I found these animal trimmed shrubs... I named the dog "Wagter";-)

Hanging out with a guardian lion also known as Shi or "Foo Dogs"

Two Lions at the entrance of important building is known to have powerful mythic protective benefits. 

And so were off to our next temple still in the Youchang area. We follow the narrow pathway back while keeping a eye out for traffic, because jeez they come out of no where.

This temple is call the General Marshal Temple.  This one is very near and dear to Jenny's heart. The temple is almost 100 years old, and in the 1960's, her father Dan-Lu Yang helped build the temple during restorations and expansions. Proudly she shows me her fathers name against the wall between 100's others.  A very special moment...   

The roof of this temple simply blew me away...

 Mind blowing detail to a ceiling.

Roof of temple from the inside.

Next we were off to Lianchihtan Scenic Area. It's home to the Lotus Lake, where father and son can come to do some fishing, friends can buy some ice cream to bring a little relief from the heat. Jenny did confess that she loves ice cream...so we stopped for a soft serve on a sugar cone. Which turned out to be a dripping mess in the heat.

I scream, you scream we all scream for ICE CREAM!

Statue Guangong and me.

It's huge, it sits high and dry...it's the Sage Emperor Guan also known as Guangong. He was a famous general in the state of Shu during the Chinese Three Kingdoms period. I tried to read up on this pappie but the only conclusion I could make was that it was a loooooong time ago.

Down the road that follows the lake is a unbelievable walkway with gardens, ponds and fishing spots. We arrived at a kind of friendly looking dragon. It's what they call a pagoda - a multi storied tower that serves as a buddhist shrine or sacred place. I asked Jenny what is it with all the dragons? Of course the answer was far from anything I could puzzle out, but this made me think what and where did dragons come from...were they animals that lived with dinosaurs millions of years ago??

Well not quite, their origin is not known.

What I did found out though is that according to the Chinese culture it is believed that dragons bring good luck to those who deserve it, it symbolizes strong powers in controlling of water, hurricanes, rainfall and floods. 

Now I know why the pagodas was found in the water clearly just not for the setting.

The first dragon on the Lianchihtan Scenic Area

The inside of the dragon, with demonstrations about good and bad behavior of man in bright colors.

Dragons are known to be a combination of nine animals. It has the horns of a deer, head of a camel or horse, eyes of the devil, neck of a snake, abdomen of a clam, scales of a carp, claws of a eagle, paws of a tiger and ears of a ox. I'm just thankful this pagodas is far from the real thing....

As we follow the path we find a couple of Temples on our right, and at the end there is a small mountain. At the foot of mountain there is the famous tiger and dragon pagodas.  I climbed up to the top to find a absolutely amazing view. By the time I got my breath back and enjoying the view, Jenny joined me huffing and puffing complaining heavily in Chinese, but at least smiling, ready for a picture;-)

The dragon and the "Eye" of the Tiger pagodas...

 

Way at the top of Pagoda...see Jenny still struggling to breath...

Boy oh Boy what a view...

I had a super fun day in the sun, enjoying sites and places I loved to learn about. Gratitude to my colleague and friend, Jenny for spending her off day with me to show me around.

I hope all have enjoyed, Thank you for reading...until our next "happie"

Groete uit die Ooste

Mariza aka Mo Li