Taiwan 2014 - temples

We spent 2 and a half weeks in Taiwan this April. It was a much anticipated trip, Lara's first Taiwan trip and my first in 14 years! For various reasons, it was decided the girls went with Weipo and the boys stayed back, a decision I was unsure to start with and Simon regretted it later, but we had a fabulous girls' time!

There are so many memories to write down. I might start with one of Lara's favorite places, the Buddhist temples. They are in every corners of Taiwan but you don't see many of them here.

The LongShan temple


On our second day in Taiwan, we ventured out to one of the oldest temples in Taipei, the LongShan temple, only two MRT stops away from where we stayed. Lara's face lit up when we got there. As temples go, LongShan is big and very famous with a fake rocky mountain on one side, a man-made pond with fish next to it, big courtyards, rustic and majestic front, colourful carvings and dragons sitting on rooftops (as with most temples).

We got there in the mid afternoon during a worship session, in the middle of a long chant. We were greeted by the smell of the incense burning and the many locals and tourists who were there first. Lara was mesmerised by the song-like chanting and said to me excitedly "Mum can you teach me to sing this song?"!!
We walked around the different rooms but didn't stay for too long because Weipo sat outside waiting for us. Weipo is a Christian and didn't want to set foot in temples! (she did break this self-imposed rule later on:)



We would encounter many temples, big and small during our trip. Some we went in, some we walked past and some we caught glimpses of through moving vehicles. We took a couple of 'long' (note 1) train journeys and counting the number of temples we saw along the way became a popular game.

We learned to enter the temples on the right door and exit through the left. Lara became an old hand at kneeling down on stools (to prey) and lighting up the incense. We studied the faces of the various gods (even if we don't know their names) and enjoyed the nice serene feel when we were inside the temples, away from the noisy world.



Travel is great. It is through travel that we remember that we sometimes forget how big the world is, how small our thoughts get and how narrow our hearts become. we live in our own worlds, worry about our little problems and forget about the bigger pictures. It is a pity that the trip was too short and we all caught Sam's daycare tummy bug when we arrived home....

Note 1 : With the high speed rail (up to 300km/hr), what used to take 8 hours when I was young(from Taipei to Kaohsuing), now took 1.5 hours! No train rides are that long any more!