Lotus Pond

We had our first cold and rainy day. Do consider that 68 is indeed cold in our minds now after being spoiled to warm weather, good thing we are not coming home during the winter months!
Anyway, we visited Lotus Pond today, we figured it would be a good day to adventure around the area. Lotus Pond is a famous pond in Kaohsiung, consisting of many old Chinese temples and architecture. The pond has a path all the way around the outside, and then bridges lead out to each of the main structures that take their place in the water. Other structures like the streets on the other side of the pond. Enjoy the pictures!!

We rode the city bikes most of the way to the pond, on our way in we came across this super unique sign welcoming us Kaohsiung!

First stop at Lotus Pond, the dragon and tiger temples! These structures were an incredible sight, so beautiful and so full of detail. When walking up them, you must enter through the dragon's mouth for good luck and fortune, and exit through the tiger's mouth to instill safety and wellness.

The dragon must have been okay with me, I didn't get eaten!

The colors and designs put in these structures, is so captivating. This is probably close to one of my favorite pictures so far!

It's a long ways up, here we go!

View from the top of the path leading in

We made it!!

Looking at some of the structures that we will be seeing next from the top of the tower!

I know I have already said it, but so much detail. This is one of the 

small dragons that sits on each layer of roof, boarding the outer edge.

We made it out; please bring us all safety and wellness, great tiger.

Next stop, a temple traveled to by bridge, surrounded by lilies, out on the pond.

In order to get to the temple, we talked through a dragon, you can see how excited I am about it. But really, I am having the time of my life!

The inside of the dragon was completely filled with more drawings

and small designs, murals, and art that represented important

traditions carried through the original Chines religion.

We made it! Here is a view (left picture) from the top of the temple of the dragon and tiger towers we just came from earlier, they look so small now! On the right, I am just doing your normal monkey tourist picture poses, not a big deal!

Beautiful temple

I couldn't resist! 

This is one of my favorite pictures from this visit, it is so vibrant and reminds me of a picture you would see in a magazine. See how gorgeous this is, imagine it ten times more beautiful in real life!

This place was heaven for photographers, I mean look at these incredible views, breathtaking. 

Next up, the traditional Chinese religion's God. In here is a place that followers of the religion can come and speak to their God or ask of guidance. It was coll to be able to see such a sacred monument to the original religion that the majority of natives still believe in.

Above are a few of the ritual traditions that people partake in when visiting their God. The top right is a huge beam (one of many that were there) that contained small pockets with  a light on the inside, people could right their name and birthday or name and date that they visited on a plastic guard, and it would be placed of the pocket so the light could shine through; people did this for good fortune. Apparently way over half of the population still practices this traditional Chinese religion, that I have noticed a lot of people calling 'family' Chinese religion. the next most followed religion is Buddhism, and a small amount of people identify as Christians or other affiliations. The picture on the left, although it is dark, shows a shrine area were people can place small burning sticks into a large pot when speaking to the God. There was another place, similar to this one, on the next level; you could ask the God for guidence or of a question. To do this you used clues and threw stones as if they were dice in order to get answers. The picture on the right shows one of structures holding the clues in each drawer, found by numbered sticks at the top.

A little off topic, but this stinking adorable dog that we ran across at the pond! Yes, he is wearing clothes, a backpack, a sun visor, and sunglasses. What dog would keep all that on!! He knew he was hot stuff, struttin' his fashion.

 Humongous shout out to Ky's host family for meeting us here and showing us around. Without them we would have been completely lost, and definitely would not of learned as much as we did, and that is the most important part when visiting these awesome places.

Thank you James, Jade, Joe, and Justin; we had an incredible day!