Dragons, No Dungeons

This week I took a temple tour with a group of about 16 expat ladies. One of the temples we toured was the Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery in the Bishan area. This is a huge complex of several buildings, some open to the public and some closed as monks do live there. They are currently adding on another building for a Buddhist college. We spent almost 2 hours there and I have so many photos it was hard to choose which to post. I decided to focus on the dragons used to decorate the roof tops that are meant to represent protection. Enjoy!

Happy Friday!!!

Collections

Exercise 4 in my photography project book is "Collections". I don't really collect anything. We live in a small condo, 1600 square feet including the balcony space that we never use because it is 90 degrees and 90% humidity outside everyday. It isn't a place to start a collection, unless it is absolutely necessary! So here are my completely necessary collections...enjoy!

Completely necessary to keep 24 issues (and counting) of Expat Living magazine! This is extremely important and useful information regarding the best restaurants, shops and events in Singapore. 

Geoff and I have been running machines lately! OK, maybe that is a bit much, but we are having a lot of fun doing all of these different races.  Race bibs are great to keep as souvenirs.

I am not a Buddhist or a religious person but for me this is necessary because it is beautiful. I probably shouldn't include this photo since its just one Buddha. I do plan on expanding my Buddha collection soon so maybe its OK. Anyway, the photo turned out well so I'm including it.

This isn't the whole cook book collection, just some of them. I love cook books since I cook most nights for us. I think since we have been in Singapore I have added 5 to the collection. Every time we move I pack them up and take them with me. I couldn't survive without them even though I still at times have no idea what I'm going to cook for dinner.

Race medals to go with some of the race bibs! Not all races hand out medals to their runners so its a treat to get them. Some are super fancy and some are not but I love them all! I want enough to decorate a Christmas tree some day.

Couldn't decide which shot was better so putting them both up. It is meant to be out of focus at the top of the photo to give a better sense of distance from the top of the medal to the medal itself. 

My nesting dolls!!! Absolutely necessary and so beautiful! Geoff used to travel to Russia and Estonia for work and he would always bring me back a new nesting doll. 

Coins...not a coin collection but a collection of coins. :)

Chinese New Year is coming up at the end of January and I am working on ideas for photographs. Fingers crossed I can come up with a few interesting shots. If anyone reading this blog has any suggestions, requests or critiques I'd love to hear from you.

Happy Friday!!!

In honor of Vesak Day

Hi everyone,

Friday is a public holiday, Vesak Day, which is the commemoration of Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death. It is the most important day on the Buddhist calendar. I decided to go to the Buddha Tooth Relic Museum and Temple to take pictures since it seemed to be the most "tourist friendly" temple. All visitors are free to take photographs of most areas of the temple and there were plenty of cameras out so I felt pretty comfortable snapping away. The lighting is sort of odd, it is sort of dark and bright, at the same time, you'll see. I love that Singapore celebrates so many different holidays, Vesak Day, Hari Raya Puasa, Hari Raya Haji, Deepavali and Christmas to name a few. There are so many fun and exciting things to see, do, learn and explore that is very different from what I am used to in California.

The back of the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum.

The lanterns have names hanging from them. Some are families and some are companies.

Inside the courtyard in front of the temple.

The red square box to the right is where you can purchase incense to burn during your prayer and then place in the giant urn in the middle of the picture. 

For Vesak Day you can come into the temple and make a donation and then wash the Buddha. Washing of the Buddha is the single most common ritual on Vesak Day in Asia. According to legend when the Buddha was born he stood straight, took seven steps, raised one hand and declared "I alone am the world honored one" to indicate he would unite heaven and earth. There is a line of people waiting to wash the Buddha and another group of photographers taking pictures of everyone.

Gorgeous temple. The gold was super shiny and the rest of the room was sort of dark with areas of brighter spot lights so it was hard for a newbie photographer to get a good picture! This one turned out pretty good.

Here is the roof top garden with the Ten Thousand Buddha's Pagoda housing the Vairocana Buddha prayer wheel. 

The prayer wheel. It is large enough for about 15 people to walk around it together. Just happened to be empty when I was there. You hold on with one hand and walk slowly around chanting. 

Happy Vesak Day everyone! For more information about the temple, please visit: www.btrts.org.sg