The Tour Islanded On: Day 2

(I meant to do all these tour posts one day after another but school started...eeek!)

Morning of day two my tour headed farther south on the way to Kaohsiung (said: Guy-shung).  But we had a few stops along the way.

The first was an old temple that was destroyed in an earthquake a long time ago (I can't remember how long).  They kept it corrupted as a reminder of the earthquake.

That was directly next to a little market they let us walk around for a while.  In this market a woman tapped me on the shoulder and instantly put scented soap under my nose and motioned to buy some blocks of soap for two dollars.

(the woman wearing black)

Did I need soap?

No.

Did I want soap?

No.

But it was the strangest thing when I found myself just handing money over as she handed me a bag full of soap.  And the miraculous thing is she did this all without saying a single word.  Not one!  One moment I had no soap, and twenty seconds later I had a full bag.  It was like I was in a trance.

(there was more than just this too...I've used a block or two...not too shabby)

After the soap incident we headed toward one of my favorite sights on the tour -

The Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Monastery.

This was the main entrance building with all the restaurants and shopping.

Behind the main entrance building starts this loooong walk but amazing view to the largest Buddha statue (either in Taiwan, or all of Asia, I can't remember) there is.

That's not the nazi symbol on the Buddha's chest, but rather a symbol of worship or prayer to Buddhists (the nazi symbol was the opposite direction).  I learned this by asking some of my students to stop drawing it because it's "very bad"...oops!  Turned out it was a symbol of their faith, haha.

The above building is the entrance into their more sacred and spiritual stuff, so cameras weren't allowed in.  But it was set up very much like the Visitor's Center at Temple Square.  They had prayer rooms with various Buddhas and an interactive walk-through of the life of Buddha and his teachings.  It was very interesting.  Also, very surprisingly similar to my own LDS church beliefs and teachings.

Afterwards, we went to the Great Buddha Land where we had a tour led by a real life female monk!

She walked us all through their corridors and gardens.

Above was a gigantic room with these three Buddha's in the wall.  At the entrance they give tourists one flower that they can go put on the table in front of Buddha as an "offering".  Not sure what any of it means but I did it!

Above is the Holy Monk Shrine.  It's just a huge building with all these white Buddha's in their own little cubbies.  (I actually saw this once on The Amazing Race years ago...)

Above is where all the monks eat their meals for special events.  And this is only HALF of the room!  Over 3,000 chairs and they all eat in complete silence.

After that tour we got back on the bus and made our final stretch to Kaohsiung.  I loved Kaohsiung.  It reminded me a lot of Seattle.  It's a port-city right on the ocean and has lots of things to do and see.  We didn't do everything, obviously, so I'll have to go back; only about a 2 hour train ride away.

We went to a cool zig-zag stairway up to a mini-temple that looked out over the ocean.

There's a lighthouse up on that rock.

This is a view across the bay of the city.

At night we went to a famous night market in Kaohsiung.  Night markets are huge in Taiwan.  They are just streets full of food venues and games and shopping and craziness.

Unfortunately, ten minutes after getting there it started to rain like crazy.

So we didn't stay too much longer afterwards.

The hotel that night was so awesome.

Yes, that tall building.

View from my hotel room.

Hello, I live(d) here.

For one night.