Jan 20, 2010

Taiwan I | Footprints 3 | Temple hopping

Day 3


Always staying one step of the crowd, our group left early. As usual, before we embarked on the long journey on road, we had our toilet stop. Fen made it so deceivingly interesting, telling us we were being brought to the only 5-star toilet in Taiwan. Being 5-star indeed, it is the dirtiest toilet we’d been to so far in Taiwan, but I think still much cleaner than any public toilets in my homeland. Why five star? It was the toilet name.


Behind the toilet was a simple fruit shop and we bought some juicy jambus to moisten our palates.


Our next destination was Hakka Cultural Village, where we had our Hakka lunch. Subsequently, we ventured around looking at the handicraft, listening to the special music presented by the Uncle using a saw.

The uncle was playing really, really, really eerie sound with the saw


My dearest also wanted to play her own music...


I'm just fooling around..


A proud Hakka girl in a Hakka village makan Hakka dishes... So Hakka...



Then we were off to the blessed land of Fo Guang Shan, literally translated as Hill of God’s light.



Basically it is like the bigger, major and humongous version of Kek Lok Si, where the whole Buddhist institution not only comprises of temple for prayers, meditation, also had held Buddhism-related Degree.





I think this photo tell a story...



a copy parody of what I previously did when I was here last time with coursemates


We moved along to other temples - the Great Statue on the Lake and the Dragon Pagodas.




Fen was telling us how to differentiate the male and female 'lion', but it think it's all too obvious, don't you think?


Enter the dragon...


Somewhere probably at the gastroduodenal junction of the dragon, i think


Luckily, they're not showing the middle finger


Taking a break from the holy tour, we were given some time to visit the Dream Mall, notably, biggest in Tai Tong, with the Hello Kitty Ferris Wheel on top of it. If you’re lucky (or perverted) enough to remember, there is actually a series of pics circulated on the net, through mail, with a girl, presumably Taiwanese, stripping till stark naked for her partner on the ride on this Hello Pussy… err, I mean, Kitty Ferris Wheel.



We were tempted to take a ride on it, but the cost of TWD400 (around RM43) per person per ride kind of deterred us from the ride. Secondly, we were neither a big fan of Ferris Wheel or Hello Kitty.


Four on panda rides


The 'famed' ferris wheel


Due to fate or destiny, thanks to Shir Li’s careless over-exchange of play chips, she invited Claire and me to use them up.




No prize for guessing the winner...




Let just say we were like a couple of teenagers, or some adults with too much time, frantically going from a game to another, before we went separate ways to do some window-shopping and enjoyed towering tall ice-cream.


Night time, we’re off to LiouHe Night Market, which boasts the long streets stalls of great delicacies.




Big crowds... (=.=")

5 comments:

seahorse27 said...

Are there lots of temples around in Taiwan?

Slim chance to have dr. j going traveling with me. We're currently in a war that went awry, this time we almost kill each other... thank God we're still alive or else you'll have less one blog-reader and less two frens... now we switched into cold war...

pilocarpine said...

well.. u never know... probably d vacation is d key to ending the cold cold war..

seahorse27 said...

We'll get kicked out of the plane..

pilocarpine said...

i always did dream of skydiving.. =)
maybe i can join both of you...

seahorse27 said...

Cool... if we ever ever ever go on a holiday up up in the sky, I'll be sure to invite you... go take up lessons as preparation first... you'll need the lessons...

Dr. J and I no need lessons... we'll be busy shouting and screaming in the air... we'll be on autopilot mode..