18 March 2017
So many gift shops
A day trip to the enormous Fo Guang Shan
Today I went to the buddha theme world amusement park extravaganza. It is at a place called Fo Guang Shan, and of course, its out in the middle of nowhere, where land is cheap.
However it is very popular, so there are lots of buses that will take you there, the information about this on the internet is outdated.
The only way I could actually get there was to take the MTR (Taiwanese subway) to a station far from the city centre and transfer to a bus.
The internet told me to go to a bus station in the city centre, which I did, and take bus 8005, which no longer exists.
I walked into the bus station office and the lady at the counter already had the instructions on where to get the bus to Fo Guang Shan ready in her hand, she did not look up from her phone streaming a Korean soap opera.
Once on the bus, I was crammed into lounge style seats facing each other, with 3 middle aged women. We had a grand old chat for the 30 minute journey, in broken Chinese.
They were fascinated why I would go to the buddhist monastery, why I would come to Kaohsiung, why I would come to Taiwan 4 times. So many questions! They were on the edge of their seats with excitement.
Then they wanted to know how I learnt to speak basic Chinese, so I showed them the app on my phone and how it speaks to me in Chinese and displays flash cards. They were genuinely amazed, and asked if everyone in Australia is forced to install this application on their phone and study for a set period each day or face consequences? Yes, yes we are.
Heading to bus station failure departure point, I passed a building constructed in my honor.
In no time flat I left my new bus friends and was at the entrance gate, theres many parts to this complex, the only part with other people is the gift shop and bus parking area as you will see.
For my mother, heres the toilets. Its an old converted bus. They have removed a central strip of the bus floor and installed a grate you squat over, along with some convenient poles to balance yourself either side.
Buddhist temple gift shop has a starbucks. Matcha tea latte time!
As you can now see, 95% of people get off the bus, enjoy the view from the gift shop / mall, sit and have lunch, then leave. I found this very weird.
Getting closer to the main temple area, note the lack of people.
Looking back, better picture of that direction later.
Under the big gold statue is the museum, which has 4 large very high quality galleries. They are not at all serious, they are modern 3d kid friendly and funny.
This is a talking laughing buddha statue. They project a moving mouth onto his golden head whilst the characters from the peanuts climb over him.
There is an unusual fascination with peanuts characters in both Taiwan and mainland China dating back a very long time, I remember reading about it, must research for future photo comments.
There is a 4D theater. An old lady was spraying the 3D glasses (whats the 4th D?) with what smelt like petrol.
There are also halls of mirrors with projections on curved walls, it was quite the weird sensation. No doubt designed to subliminally message me to spend big in the gift shops, there were at least 30 gift shops all over the place.
The museum is very comprehensive. Here we can see a representation of people travelling to visit the museum.
And here is a wax figure of a guy telling me that I will be reincarnated as a dung beatle unless I spend at the gift shop.
Someone carved a thousand buddhas on this hunk of wood.
Once I walked around the back, there was absolutely no one at all. I could have removed my shorts.
Looking back towards the starbucks.
There is also a garden telling the buddhist story of creation. The Dalai Lama woke up drunk after a dream and thought of all kinds of magnificent creatures and commanded the monkeys and pigs to procreate until such time as new creatures were resurrected.
They have also recreated the Kyoto golden shrine. Two of them.
At first I thought that was it, day over. But no, there is a much larger monastery up and around this steep road featuring cartoon characters and buddhist messages.
I did not see another person. I had read there was a free lunch here for 5000 people! As it turns out, not on weekends. The monks are out partying on weekends.
They have created a forest of minions out of old tyres to amuse themselves.
There is no way into that structure, from what I can tell it is where visiting monks get to stay. They are known for having wild parties with cocaine and hookers. I am not kidding, google it. It was a big global scandal a couple of years ago when one of the worlds highest ranking monks killed a hooker in a hotel in Korea. They had booked out the entire hotel!
Inside the monastery there were many gardens, looked after by employed gardeners, not the monks themselves.
Also, more pagodas.
And just when I thought this was a serious monastery, yet more gift shops appeared, lots of them!
This is the main hall in the real monastery area. No photos inside buildings like this. Actually even inside the museum building there were 2 places they were very serious about no photos. Also, take shoes off!
I still managed to get a free lunch! As it turns out, I ate in the gardeners and other workers canteen. They have a donation box... free lunch!
Now we move into the world of thousands of statues.
I worked out now that I had come in a back entrance and made my way to the front. Oh well.
Note the hundreds of gold statues surrounding enormous gold statue.
As I said at the top, the whole place is located on cheap land. This is the view, of nothing except pollution.
Look how happy these kids are to find a public toilet! This one is a shared hole in a wooden plank, with a rope suspended from the roof to hang onto.
Bonus view of monastery area.
I went back the way I came and prayed to pokemon go for a while.
Final photo for the day, I snuck up through a fire exit into the front of the visiting special monks hotel. I still couldnt figure out how to get inside, but I really could hear a party going on, with Katy Perry playing, and then someone was revving a Harley Davidson!
....daisy dukes, bikinis on top..