Taiwan trip and GlobalTiC Award 2013 (Day 2) Part 3

The next thing on the list were temples! One of my favourite places to visit when in any country, even back home. Temples, or any place of worship, offer a wealth of artistry and breathtaking architecture.

After lunch, we took the metro and stopped at Yuanshan Station. It was already afternoon, and just imagine the intensity of the sun's rays. It was scorching hot - I am exaggerating - and the air was so humid, sweat stuck to our skin like positive and negative poles of two magnets. Luckily, I brought a cap, but Dad just refused to wear one, even though he was squinting his eyes to tightly.

The walk to the Confucius Temple would take, as according to a very friendly lady at the tourist information counter at the station, about 10 minutes on foot. So we did go on foot, under the sun (I will stress on this a lot). It felt like a pilgrimage of some sort. Although it sounds uncomfortable, it was pretty fun, walking under the sun like that.

We found out that the Confucius Temple was closed, as Monday is the rest day. On top of that, many other temples were closed as well, except for Baoan Temple. Dismayed as we were, we came here to see a temple, and that was what we were going to do.

We walked past many mechanic shops, a whole block of them actually. When we arrived at our destination, we thought the whole temple was closed, but then found that Baoan Temple was open, just opposite from where we stood. The place that was closed for a while was actually some sort of garden.

The Baoan Temple is different from the temples in, say, Beijing, as it has more Southern Chinese style architecture. This means more colour, more animate figures on the roof, and swallow tail roof ends; Northern Chinese style architecture is less so, if you refer to pictures of buildings in Beijing, you would know what I'm talking about. (Here are two pictures of two different temples for a comparison)

Baoan Temple, Taipei

Lama Temple, Beijing

There were some murals, beautiful carvings, porcelain sculptures (the core of the sculpture could be cement but is decorated with colourful porcelain), figures of the deities, incense, flowers, and devotees praying. 'Baoan' means to ensure safety, peace, health. So generally people come here to pray for those qualities in their lives. For example, a pregnant woman can pray for the safe delivery of her baby.

There weren't many people and was peaceful. It was the same for the garden opposite, opened again at 3, if I remember correctly. There was a large dragon, covered in porcelain scales, spouting water from its mighty mouth. The effect of the porcelain chips is lifelike, very beautiful. Opposite the main entrance there was a wall with a mural, also in porcelain chips. It was quiet, and the shade provided much relief from direct sunlight.

The Confucius Temple, which is Baoan Temple's neighbour, was closed, and a group of tourists were caught in the same situation as us, of having to cross this out of our list and save for, hopefully, another trip. Which left Dad and I to walk to the other side of the Yuanshan Station where a Naruto exhibition was being held. Here's a neat trick, if you haven't tried it already. It's really straightforward. Act interested, stand at the door of the exhibition centre, and feel the blast of cool air blow from above. I refer specifically to the door because of the powerful blast of the air cond. (I think it's a way to keep hot air out).

On the way back to the station form the temple, we stopped at a 7 Eleven to have beer, a much needed beer. We shared a can. most satisfying.

We weren't interested in Naruto, so we headed back to Yuanshan station to get to our most important stop, Danshui.

(To be continued)

Cheers
Zhusun