Yesterday we went on a family outing. It was the Hainan Island crew reunited - Brad, Xian, her nephew Kenneth, and myself. We hired a friend of Xian's to drive us to 'Hongfa Temple' and the Botanical Gardens. I love going for drives in this country. The driving here is so random and crazy, and I find it thrilling, fascinating, (miraculously, in one month I have only seen one accident), and at times so ridiculous that it makes me laugh out loud. People cut in front of others, swerve between lanes, and make last minute decisions. There is a lot of horn-honking going on! And it's not just when people are frustrated, they also use their horns to let people know they're there. It's a driving communication tool, since there are no rules. It's pretty awesome! I am dying to try driving here, just so I can experience the freedom of being able to drive completely intuitively and randomly… and yes, like a maniac!
So anyways, we drove for about 45 minutes to get to the 'Hongfa Temple,' which is actually a collection of Buddhist buildings and temples, and is more like a small village. At the main temple we gave thanks to Buddha by lighting three sticks of incense each, bowing three times before the Buddha, and then placing the burning incense in a giant incense burner. At another temples there was a shrine-type-thing where people toss coins up to. It took several tosses to get our coins to land! After walking around the temple grounds we visited the shops (but of course!). Then we carried on to the botanical gardens. There were a few different stops, but we were too late in the day to get into all of them, and the botanical buildings were all closed for the day, unfortunately. Still, we had a good time wandering around the cacti and other plants. The most interesting stop was at a petrified tree "forest." We had way too much fun taking photos of each other here. Good family fun!
The drive back to the city was after dark, and the lights on the city skyscrapers are so fantastic. There were alternating coloured lights that scaled the top stories of one building, and blue blinking lights that wrapped around another. It adds so much to the cityscape at night, and driving through the streets with the windows open and the warm humid air rushing by was so exciting, visually stimulating, and blissful.
To cap off our most excellent day, we went for dinner at a vegetarian restaurant that we recently discovered and had, yet again, an absolutely scrumptious meal.
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| The coin toss temple. |
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| Incense burner (and incense lighter in the background.) |
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For some reason people feel the need to graffiti the plants.
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| Petrified wood close-up. |
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| Impersonating petrified trees. |
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| Add caption |
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| Kenneth, always ready to pose in a picture! |
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