Kaohsiung- Day 3

On our last day in Kaohsiung, we were very lucky to have Sunny's parent's take us on a drive and show us around the area a little! They first drove us to a town called Meinong which was a little outside of Kaohsiung and allegedly famed for its paper umbrellas (if you ever travel Taiwan, you'll soon realise that every town seems to have a certain product that it's famous for, and that if you tell anyone about a town you have been to, they will immediately ask you about said famous product). The town itself had loads of grand looking villas in a huge variety of styles, ranging from traditional to modern and European to Taiwanese. Along the drive, we also got to enjoy the wonderful views offered by the lush green mountains surrounding the area.

Not the most interesting picture, but it came with a funny story (which I can't remember perfectly and no doubt am about to butcher). Allegedly this cliff side was originally extremely shiny and smooth and prophesied a Taiwanese King (or something of the sort?). When Chang Kai Shek led the Republic of China to Taiwan as they fled the mainland, he supposedly was suspicious of this and had the rock chipped and broken away to ensure that he would remain unchallenged as leader. 

One of the more European stye houses.

A house in the Hakka style (the Hakka are an ethnic group of people in Taiwan who came from China in the 1600s), which was fairly common in this area, and which Sunny's parents' kept pointing out to us, so I decided was worth a mention in the blog!

After driving us around the town, Sunny's parents took us to this Hakka Style restaurant. The owner had some kind of connection (I think they were in-laws?) with a painter and there was a small room filled with the artist's paintings which were great to look at! Sunny's parents treated us to some delicious Hakka cuisine which was delicious, although I failed to take any pictures!

After we finished our meal of various steamed vegetables, soup, fried pork cutlets and sesame oil chicken, Sunny's parents told us they were taking us to a Daoist temple, called the Tiantaishan Monastery, which was allegedly little known by Western tourists, and less easily accessible without a car. The entrance to the temple was a huge white and gold arch, followed by a long, winding road, bordered on either side by trees which gave it the feel of driving up to some grand estate. 

The grounds of the temple were huge and covered in statues and trees.

Like all temples I have seen in Taiwan, this one was covered in artwork retelling stories from the religion.

A large container where incense sticks are burned. Incense pots are pretty common to see at temples, but this is one of the more exquisite ones I've seen!

Eliza standing with one of the temple guard statues. As you can see, they were pretty big!

The front entrance of the temple.

Gold featured prominently in the temples colour scheme and when the sun reflected off of it, it was a particularly beautiful sight to behold!

On Meinong's tourism page on the Tiantaishan Monastery, it makes reference to the a white jade Buddha Statue made from the biggest piece of white jade in Asia. I cannot attest to the authenticity of this fact, or if this is indeed said statue, but here is a white statue of Buddha nonetheless!

All the carvings on and statues in the temple carried on the white and gold colour scheme.

After leaving the Tiantaishan Monastery, we headed to the Fo Guang Shan, named for Buddha, whose name in Chinese is Fó. Fo Guang Shan is the largest Buddhist monastery in Taiwan, and contains both a monastery and the newly built Buddha Memorial Centre. Unfortunately, the monastery was closed when we went, so we were only able to see the Memorial Centre.

The lead up to the Memorial Centre, surrounded on either side by large pagodas was pretty spectacular.

The Memorial Centre itself, along with the giant 108m tall Buddha statue which sits on top. Inside the Memorial Centre were shrines used for religious purposes, various exhibits on the life of Buddha as well as some art exhibits, which we were unable to see since we were pressed for time to get back to Taipei! There was also an underground chamber which was filled with ancient historic artefacts pertaining to Buddha and Buddhism. The museum plans to open 48 of these, with one new one being opened every hundred years. They even had a closed entrance to what would be the second chamber, which had an LED timer counting down the years and days left until its opening.

The area around the centre had many pieces of art depicting stories of Buddha as well as statues, and all of these fortunately had English translations, so it was much more accessible! Unfortunately time restraints meant we couldn't fully take these in, but I'd definitely like to return some time to pay these more attention.

There was still a lot more worth seeing and exploring at Fo Guang Shan, and I think it will definitely be worth a second (and longer) visit.  However, as you can see, it had gotten pretty dark by the time we had gotten out of the Memorial Centre and we still had a bus and then train to catch back to Taipei! Fortunately a bus went directly from the station to the Kaohsiung High Speed Rail station. From here, I took my first bullet train, which travels at 182mph, back to Taipei. Although the prospect of a bullet train sounded exciting, the train itself (perhaps unsurprisingly) just felt like any other train. However, it travels at twice the speed of the regular speed train, getting us back home in just under two hours.