One Saturday our adventures took us to the Jiu Hua Temple. We took the train, and even transferred to a different line to get there, thanks to Tom's good research and ability to read quite a few characters.
After getting off the train we had a nice little walk in an older part of town. I find these parts of our adventure just as interesting as the destination. We walked along a river and up a little road with small alleys that led to homes.
There was a public toilet along the way. We explored. They were squatters, of course, but there were no doors, and the partitions were only about 4 feet high. You had to step up to get into all of them. The only difference between the handicap accessible one is that it had a bar to grab.
Also along the way we saw:
After arriving and finding someone to talk to, Tom asked if it was okay to take pictures and they really welcomed it.
We wandered around for a bit looking at the intricacies of the detail in their worship places.
We happened upon a sort of a ceremony. We learned that a young person (perhaps early 20s) was joining the Buddhist religion. There was some sort of prayer sung with some chanting and the worshipers bowing when told to bow.
After it was over, the congregation of about 8 followed all but one of the female monks out of the building. The remaining one began chatting with Tom. She started passing out the sacrificial food to us!
We didn't really want to take it, but we each got a banana and a packaged cake. Then she placed the rest of the sacrificial food on plates on a table. While she did this, we wandered around in that portion of the temple. Upon our return to the main room, the congregation had returned and sat down at the plates. Another chanted prayer was given and then the event was over. The congregation quickly left, except two older gentlemen who were intrigued by our presence and came to talk to us. A few of the monks also stayed. The first monk had said she would take our picture after the ceremony was finished. Then her and the others all stood around and asked lots of questions. I couldn't tell too much of what they were saying, except that I could tell they were amazed at our family back in America so I pulled out pictures and they were astounded. They loved seeing our family picture and just couldn't believe our family size. Later Tom told us that they said the girls were 'very tall and very beautiful' that Tom was too short and skinny to be American and that I was too young and skinny to have had 5 children. And they loved that we had that big of a family. It was very entertaining receiving that much attention even if we couldn't understand much.
Fun adventure!
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