Our Days Thursday and Friday

On Thursday, we went to the Chen Family Temple. It was once a place where all members of the Chen clan went to pray to their ancestors. It then became a school, and is now a folk art museum.

This is the entrance to the temple.

Dad and J just inside the doors. She slept through most of the tour.
This is a panel of embroidery. You can see it's multiple layers of translucent fabric. I really want to find a small panel of fish embroidery. There is also one in the hotel that is transparent fabric, so you can look at the embroidery from both sides. Where do they hide their knots?
Dad and J watching a puppet show. The sign out front said "Approaching Puppet". It kind of seemed like a warning. We assume they meant something like "the puppets are coming." Which also seems kind of ominous.

One of the lion statues outside the gate. The lion has a ball in its mouth representing a pearl. This is done to stop the river from flooding.

After our tour of the temple, we went shopping at a place that had jade, pearls, embroidery and other things. We picked up a few gifts for J and others.

On Thursday we went to Six Banyan Tree Temple. This is an active Buddhist temple. We couldn't take pictures inside the building, but you can see the giant Buddhas through the doorways.

We were among some of the families who took their babies inside the temple for a blessing from a monk. We did it to honor part of her culture and to allow her culture to wish a happy life for her. Incense and sprinkled water - just like home. Here's a pic of J with her head still moist from the sprinkling. She slept through that, too.

After our tour, we went to a "toy market". It was a 6 floor building full of everything under the sun, not just toys. I was looking for a baby doll for J to play with that looks like her. Oddly, I didn't find anything. Plenty of blond haired, blue eyed dolls, though.

Here we are back at the hotel after a long day. J is practicing standing with Dad's help.