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Published: February 27th 2007
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The Chinese Temple
What I discovered while taking a walk around my "home". Hidiho everyone. Well as you can see, I haven't left Singapore as planned on Feb 25th. Heheheh. It's not that I could not get enough of Singapore but there were a couple reasons involved in extending my stay. The first reason being some medical issues I wanted to take care of here, in Singapore, in a country with decent health care. I did not want to deal with my medical problems in countries with poorer health care facilities. The second reason was that I was stressing out about leaving and not feeling prepared at all for what lay ahead. I mean I have a vague idea of where and what I want to see but nothing too detailed. And I know from what friends have told me that you shouldn't have detailed plans cause most likely they will change. Which is true but I need to sit down and go through my guide book or go on the internet when I have it so readily available every day to just see where I would like to go in Thailand, my next stop (and also plan for Cambodia and Vietnam...if I can). And to figure out how much money I need. That
Cool incense stick
Ward off the evil and light the way for the particular prays people did is what I am doing now. I was at McCafe listening to my tunes and planning. So you may be wondering what is McCafe? Well it's not Starbucks or Second Cup or Timmies (I wish). It's Micky D's man!! McDonalds has a damn cafe! I don't feel too bad cause I didn't actually eat at McD's. I haven't had it in god knows how long now....well that's not exactly true....I've had their strawberry sundae since being here but that doesn't count!! Hehehe. Oh ya another thing about McDonald's in Singapore which I think the West would love to have but absolutely does not need, is delivery! Yup, McDonald's delivers!! Crazy shit man. Imagine how much more obese Americans would be if they could get delivery of the nastiest fast food chain.
This blog is just going to be random shit cause I haven't exactly done anything of interest since the last entry. Oh besides going to this Chinese Temple when there was this New Year celebration going on (Day 8). I was walking back "home" from Joanne and Kevin's after having dinner with them when I heard the sound of drums coming from the temple. Of course when I
don't have my camera something cool is going on. Anyway it was pretty neat just to watch and not have the camera between me and the festivities. Plus, I was already being starred at cause I was the only whitey there so I thought not having the camera was a good thing. The drums and gongs were accompanying 2 dancing dragons. There were two guys per dragon (one in front controlling head, the other in the rear). It was pretty cool. The mouths would open and eat oranges or whatever was thrown into their mouths. The guys controlling the head then jumped up on the other guys shoulders to make the dragons grow and they would manuver them quite gracefully, like they were flying high. After that show was done I wondered up the steps and watched the crowd enter the temple with burning incense and pray to whatever god. Totally like in the movies but now I'm witnessing it first hand😉 Hanging from the awning ceiling were dozens upon dozens of the longest incense sticks I've ever seen which were spiral in shape and all burning. They had these yellow cards attached to them which are meant to cast
away evil spirits. So what I saw people doing was lighting the incense and praying to or asking for the certain things the gods represent then sticking the burning incense into a big pot of sand. There are 11 gods and all of them represent something different: Cai Shen - god of fortune and prosperity; Chang'e - goddess of the moon; Guan Yin - boddhisattva of compassion and mercy; Guan Yu - patron saint of righteousness, brotherhood, and loyalty; Jade Emperor - ruler of the heavens; Matsu - patron saint of fishermen and sailors; Shangdi - supreme diety found in early Chinese mythology; Sun Wukong - monkey king and main character of Journey to the West; Tian - deification of the heavens; Tu Di Gong - patron god of villages and farmers; and, Zao Jun - god of the kitchen. So burning incense is like a light that will allow their pray to find it's way. People were also burning the paper of both gold and silver colour but not together. Gold is believed to be higher, more expensive than silver and signifies the gods. Whereas burning silver paper is casting away evil spirits. The last several nights when I
Beautiful design
One side of the case wall where a God was sitting in would walk down the streets, many people would be out on the sidewalks burning papers. Either warding of evil or inviting goodness. Very interesting I say. Inside the temple where you had to take your shoes off, I did not venture but there was this huge god or warrior in the middle with smaller warriors on either side of him. I am assume these are the 11 gods but I do not know why the one was so much larger than the rest. I took these pics at the temple a couple of days later when it was completely quite.
Hmmm what else can I tell y'all. More about the food😊 Hehehe. Seriously though, I cannot get over how cheap it is to eat and I know it will only get cheaper as I travel through Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and China. When I first arrived here, we would go out to eat all the time, breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper!! That felt very strange to me cause you just can't do that at home without blowing your whole paycheck on eating out. But it's totally different here. You don't pay back home prices, like lunch at $10CAD or dinner
The ceiling above the God
Pretty flippin' neat. The pic doesn't do it justice. Very beautiful. at $10-$20CAD....well not like I paid those prices back home except when with a particular someone and he paid😉 You can get a decent meal and such variety for $2-5SGD ($1.50-3.50CAD). And we aren't talking "fast nasty food, will be hungry in an hour type" food. This is good, hearty meals where there always seems to be leftovers - well at least on my plate - and that is another thing I had to get over was the feeling of guilt at leaving food on my plate and not taking a "doggy bag" home. Weird. Anyhu back to the good, hearty food......so for example, chicken rice, bee hoon mee (flat noodle) with sliced fish soup, fishball soup, rice and an assortment of veggies, tofu, meat, and/or fish (you get to choose what side you want with rice), duck noodle, laksa, fish head curry, just to name a few. Don't get me wrong there are the restaurants with the pricey dishes but the hawker centres and cafeteria places are pretty decent.
Alrighty. I'll probably only have 1 more blog from Singapore before I start my "real" travels. You guys must be getting bored of hearing about Singapore and want me
to move on😉 I still have the Bird Park to do and that's pretty much it. Toodles.
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Mark
non-member comment
Shaken?
Hey Lindsay, Sorry I haven't been able to comment on your Blog recently or email for that matter. I've been crazy busy these days...analysis...analysis...Doh! Did it wrong, better do it again...You know how it is. I imagine now that you are on the road the blogging will be a bit less frequent and shorter. Hope the quake didn't frighten you too much and that you are AOK. If you ever get a phone card you should try to drop us a line or if any of the internet cafe have webcam maybe we can go on messenger sometime. So, until then be safe and have fun. Cheers, Mark