Saturday, 27 July 2013
Fo Guang Shan, The Largest Buddhist Monastery in Taiwan
Today I
will take you to see
another tourism object in Taiwan. We will visit the largest Buddhist monastery in
Taiwan, Fó guāng shān ( 佛光山).
It’s located at Dashu, Kaohsiung 84049, Taiwan
ROC .
I went there with my four another friends. We
depart at 9 a.m.; we ate our breakfast and we take a bus at 9.30. From my
place, Wenzao Ursuline College of Language, I must take the bus number 35 to Zuo
ying MRT station (about 10 -15 minutes) and then take the bus number 8501 from Zuo Ying MRT station
to Fo Guang Shan. (35-40 minutes).
FYI, the bus will be stopped at the halte bus near Fo Guang Shan and then we can walk from the bus stop go inside the monastery.
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| Left to right : Marcel ; Jeanne ; Betha ; Della and Me (Claudia). |
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| Route bus number 35 |
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| The bus number 8501 from Zuo Ying to Fo Guang Shan |
First time you put your step in there, you will be
welcome with the majestic gate with lion and elephant statue in front of the
gate.
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| The Gate |
Then, go inside the monastery. We start our trip
today from here.
First place you will visit after you across the
gate is the shopping center. There is some restaurant, souvenir shops,
7-Eleven, Starbucks and vegetarian restaurant Hi-Lai.
Because I like postcard, I buy some postcard and I
take some picture there.
Many people will spend their time a lot in here
because there is really have many beautiful things like jade, postcard, Taiwan’s
souvenirs, delicious food and many more. However, If you come here, do not take
too much time here. Why? It is because you can visit this place later or when you want to go back home. So, do not worry. You can still buy many souvenirs
later.
Just follow the route and then you can find the
door that will bring you go inside the monastery. I remember that when you find
the door you will also find the golden wall with a lot of Chinese character in
there. I just take some picture.
Across the door, the fascinated and huge Buddha
statue will welcome you. There also eight pagodas, which every pagoda have
their own story. However, because of the limited time that I have so I do not
have enough time to visiting all the pagodas. I just visit one of them. That is
pagoda number 7. In there, a nice and friendly woman like a receptionist there
will welcome you and ask you to go inside and see a short video about Fo Guang
Shan. The video is just 10 to 12 minutes and available in another languages
besides Chinese. The woman will tell you some information, place, or attraction
that you can visit at that day too.
In fact, she recommend us to visit all the pagodas
from pagoda 1 to 8 but my friend and I, we cannot make it.
Therefore, I just go inside the place where there
are a lot of exhibition and museums.
From the first door at the shopping center to the
museum, the beautiful scenery along the way will amaze you.
I also take same picture there.
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| The Buddha Statue and The Eight Pagodas |
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| Della; Jeanne; Marcel ; Me. |
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| Jeanne; Marcel; Me; Betha. |
In addition, if you want to go inside the museum
you must pay attention to some restrictions like this:
After you know all the rules, now we can go inside
and I will tell you all the activity that we do in there.
 |
| The Museum |
First things that we do are find the place that we
can watch the short story about this place and Buddha in the 3D movie.
The 3D movie will be show once an hour. You must
take the movie ticket first in the counter in front of the 3D movie theatre and
you must come 10 minutes before the show begin because you need to queue first.
If you come late, you cannot enter the gate so you must wait until the next
movie schedule.
Moreover FYI, in there you are not allowed to take
a picture, eat or drink, and you must silence your phone. They also will give
you the 3D eyeglasses and the movie is in Chinese, so for foreigner I think you
will get some problems to understand that. Nevertheless, maybe you can just
enjoy the movie and try to guess.
After finished watching the movie, we just go
around that place. We visit some museum and just look and pray there. I am not Buddhist
but I like to see the Buddha statue and I just pray in the religion way that I
believe.
There is one museum or temple (The avalokitesvara),
that will give you some flower, yellow flower that you can use when you pray
and after prayed you can put the flower in the glass basin in front of the Buddha
statue.
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| Laser Buddha (inside the museum) |
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| Laser Buddha (inside the statue) |
After that because my friends and I are very hungry,
we decided to go back to the shopping center for eat. However, before we go
back, we find one souvenir shop near the entrance and exit .We buys some
postcard again.
We go out and take some picture in front of the
museums. You can see the picture below.
We go to the shopping center and buy some food at
7-Eleven. Because a lot of people there so, we just take our food and go to the
bus stop and eat there.
If you people also want to go there by the public
bus, you must pay attention on the bus schedule because the bus will be there
every 30 minutes once.
After waiting for about 15 minutes, we get into the
bus and go back home.
It is the end of my journey with my friends today.
However,
there are still a lot of place in the Fo Guang Shan that I haven't visited.
If I go there again, I will tell you guys.
Hope
you can come here and enjoy the experience that I enjoyed.
Happy Travelling.
The cost:
Bus no. 35: NTD 10 for student (Use MRT card); NTD
12 for public; NTD 6 for kids.
Bus no. 8501: NTD 58 for student (use MRT card),
NTD 69 for public and NTD 33 for senior citizen or kids.
The entrance fee: FREE
Photo from : Marcelinus Putra Wijaya
Photo from : Marcelinus Putra Wijaya
