TOUFEN 3rd DAY: EARTHQUAKE AND LUKANG TEMPLE

Early this morning I found out two things. One is that Maya said that it would be colder today so she doesn't want to go down to Lukang (or Lugang as it's also written phonetically). This town is about an hour drive and it'll be cold walking around. The second thing is about the earthquake on the East coast, about 10 miles from a town called Huailian. Thankfully as far as I can tell there were no casualties, althugh there was  damage to buildings. (I found out later that there were a couple of casualties though)

The town is a straight shot across the island from Toufen, on the East coast. It's only about 70 miles from where I am staying but there are no direct roads through the mountainous center of the island. The route going up through Taipei takes almost 4 hours.

Wow, I never knew that there were earthquakes on this island, but it's not surprising given its relative proximity to Japan, the Philipines, Indonesia and other places sitting on several faults,

Met with Maya for breakfast, a little earlier becasue she was a little shaken up because of the earrthquake, one that I slept through (the sleep of the just.) we discussed the day and decided that Maya should stay in town for the day so she could rest and I would go down to Lukang. Andrew, who hasn't been there for a long time, since he was 10 years old or so, decided to come with me. Obviously this was fortituous given that knows how to get around, plus he'll be good company. Also, he speaks Chinese of course.

Andrew picked me up at the hotel, and we drove to the Miaoli high-speed rail train station. Yes, they also have bullet trains here. The station was about a 20 min drive from the hotel. The train, that was naturally very modern looking, was comfortable and took only 10 minutes to get to Taichung. 

At the train station, I saw this ad for Kohler; I couldn't resist a photo for old times sake.

We took a taxi in Taichung that in another 20 minutes or so took us to Lukang.

Here is Andrew once we arrived at the Taichung station

Incidentally, Lukang means "Deer Port"- I can see the port meaning since the town is by the sea (that I didn't see) but can't figure out the deer part. Nonetheless, there were these deer sculptures near a government building.

The taxi dropped us near the famous Mazu Temple, which is the oldest and largest temple. This was an awesome temple; awesome in its correct meaning of stunning or breathtaking, not in the use of young people who mean it to be good, such as I had awesome eggs for breakfast, I feel awesome today, etc. The temple was really huge, with a lot of intricate carvings on the doors, walls, ceilings, etc.

This is the enteance to the temple, awesome

Once you enter, you find yourself in this patio where you can incense or paper for offerings to Buddha.

There were quite a few of these Chinese lanterns. I think you can see the age of the building in the ceiling wood beams in this photo.

This is another view of the intricate sculptured wood beams in the ceiling.

The doors to the temple entrance were painted, long time ago clealy by their state, you can see the painted images faintly.

This is the incense cauldron in the middle of the patio. Gorgeous dragon figures on the sides.

And of course one has to take a selfie to prove that one has been there (and it's clearly not photo-shopped because of the poor quality of the photo.

One of the reasons one comes to a Buddhist temple, other than as a tourist, is to pray for some favor from the Buddha or whoever the deity maybe. Inthis case it'sthefemale goddess Mazu. Andrew said people may be asking for a husband, or wife, or in today's environment for both perhaps, for a child (not children because that would be too much of a burden).

So you as a believer come and pick up two small pieces of wood that are shaped like orange or apple slices. You throw them in the flor and if they fall in a certain way, you can go pick up one of the sticks in this container.

You make some sort of praying and bowing with the stick in your hands, and go show it to a monk or person nearby who does some kind of reading. I don't recall if he gives you a number, or the number is iin  the stick. You go to another area, shown in the photo below, that has this case with little cards in numbered boxes. You pick up the card with your number. The card contains either imstructions or theresult of your prayers. Or perhaps you take the card to the reader who will tell you what will happen with your request. It's all very compoicated.

Following are a number of photosof various rooms or things within the temple. First is the second patio or open area. There were wonderful stone sculptures of drafons and other creatures.

The lines across the top of the photo above are lights that I imagine were installed for the New Year celebrations coming up around the eighteenth of February.

Another view of the building roof

And here is a photo of one of many fascinating rooms. At the center is a small image of one of the Gods, to whom people will pray and offer incense.

A close up of the bas-relief on the side boards.

And a container where believers can put the incense sticks (I assume because they were tired of carrying them around, although as a pray offering is a good excuse)

And of course, Buddhists like Catholics don't miss an opportunity to sell you stiff. This is a small shop in one of the back rooms where you can purchase Buddhist treasures such as Hello Kitty t-shirts.i wonder if you get the same indulgences as burning incense.

There were several rooms, rooms and rooms fulled with small statues of the 12 Gods (I believe there were 12 like the 12 Apostles in Christian religions)

A close up of a couple of the Gods. By the way, Andrew's company was very helpful since he knew a lot about the names and meanings of all these things. 

And a beautiful statue of one of the Gods (I believe it's the most important one but couldn't tell who ro what)

This is the last of the temple photos. It took us over two hours to walk through the temple.