The MIddle Kingdom Part II

Guiyuan Buddhist Temple (Wuhan)

Europe has churches. Asia has temples. Look at that pond full of turtles. So many of them! And they're stacked on top of one another! People "donate" the turtles to the temple as a gesture of goodwill. 

The temple grounds were HUGE and packed with both patrons as well as tourists like myself. You follow the crowd/herd because trying to go against the tide would be just plain crazy. I mean, look at that crowd!

One of the most noticeable characteristics of this temple was the number of "Lohans" it hosted. You walked in the building and it's a maze full of these minor buddhas, every single one of them unique. You're suppose to add up your birthday or something or another and find the corresponding buddha with the same number in order to get your fortune. I wasn't a big fan of all the buddhas (some of them were pretty spooky looking...), so I skipped that part and just moved on. There must have been over a hundred statues. Gah, the nightmare about statues coming to life in the dark of the night suddenly just got a lot scarier! The reason why I didn't take any pictures in this particular room.

You could have also gotten your fortunes by picking up wooden sticks with numbers. You'd then use the number to receive a corresponding fortune. Of course, a "donation" was necessary.

 

A rare moment of peace (left) taken near the back of the temple (me thinks...)

P.S. Just thought I'd include this picture of a really cute dog I saw on the temple premises while waiting for the rest of the tour group. Because it's always nice to look at pictures of cute animals!