Sunday,
July 3, 2011
SIX BANYAN TEMPLE AND MEMORIAL HALL
Today our guide took us to some of the cultural and historical
sights in and around Guangzhou. We visited the Six Banyan Temple
where we saw some giant Buddahs and the temple where people go
to worship. At least that’s what they appeared to be doing. It’s
hard to imagine that these people put their hope and trust in
some giant statues to give their life meaning, indeed it made us
kind of sad for them. But it was an interesting glimpse into
another culture, and we are trying to be open to learning about
many aspects of the girls’ culture while we are here, even those
we don’t necessarily agree with. The funniest thing that
happened while we were there was when we were standing in the
back of the temple trying to keep the kids quiet while we looked
around, and at that moment one of the monk’s cell phones went
off. So he reaches into his robes and pulls out his phone, then
steps outside for a chat. Holt snuck a picture of him because he
thought it was funny. I think there is some kind of rule about
taking pictures of them but he was too busy talking to notice.
After the temple we went to some kind of local artist exhibit,
which was pretty stressful for us because Maili is not exactly
known for keeping her hands to herself and almost everything in
the place was a one of a kind original and breakable. We managed
to get out of there without anything getting broken, at least
not by us. An employee dropped a box she was packing for a
customer and I thought her boss would faint. There was an artist
painting beautiful pictures inside bottles which was really
neat, and we bought a couple for the kids. She stuck her tiny
little brush inside the bottles and painted their names on them,
while they watched. I picked out a couple to go in my room and
gave them mine and Jamie’s names , intending for her to put one
name on each. Instead, she put both names on both bottles. Oh,
well.
After that we visited Memorial Hall, which was a monument to
some important Chinese leader who lived in Guangzhou at one
time. Honestly, that’s all I remember from the tour, but it did
have some beautiful architecture and gardens where I took some
pictures.
After returning to the hotel room the girls got really silly
playing together and I took a few pictures before calming them
down. Our room has a remote control shower curtain, and Jamie
had them convinced that he gave them magic powers and they could
make it go up and down by pointing to it and shouting out
commands. They had a grand time taking turns waving their magic
wands and watching it obey their commands. They never did
discover that Baba was hiding the remote behind his back! And
Callie now knows the words UP, DOWN, and STOP. |
Tower at the Six
Banyan Temple
Girls at the temple
Inside the walls at the temple
|
