Flower Pagoda/Six Banyan Temple

The monestary has a choir room where area residents come to sing. you can just go in and sit on a cushion and sing or chant with the monks.
Amelia, of course, charmed everyone she met, and took her nap in daddy's arms while we toured. I was a little worried about being out and about during nap time, but she went to sleep like an angel and woke up smiling and happy.
The three Buddhas represent past, present, and future. We did allow Amelia to have her Buddhist blessing. Even though we are christian, this felt like a nice gift from her country, especially since buddhism is the primary religion here. Jimmy and I can appreciate the experience of learning about something, even if we dont embrace the belief system it represents.

For the blessing, we removed our shoes and knelt on a carpet in front of the buddhas. A young monk beat on a little drum and chanted for about 5-10 minutes. We prayed to our own God during this time, and enjoyed experiencing some of the exotic culture of Amelia's homeland. The temple was filled with sweet smelling incense and was very warm, both from the incense and the 100 degree weather. To be honest, by the time he finished the blessing, I think we had moved beyond praying for our family and were just praying for it to end, because we were burning up! I'm telling you, this is a different kind of hot than we have in Atlanta. the humidity was at about 98%.
This is the young monk that did our blessing. He was very sweet. Not the most flattering picture of me, but still..........its going down to posterity anyway. It was an important morning for our little family.


Before the blessing, we each burned 3 insense sticks (and 3 for Amelia) and offered a prayer for peace and happiness. The girl above is doing the same.


When you first enter the temple grounds, you encounter this thingy. Kathy (our guide) gave us coins to throw into the hole near the top. if you ring the hole, it means a life of good luck. Now of course, Jimmy rang it the first time...........and can you guess how many it took me? I dont know.......we lost count. Frankly, I feel pretty lucky anyway, so I didnt really care if I rang the hole or not, but Kathy would not rest until I got my luck. Finally, it happened and my humiliation came to an end :) Then you go around and touch each of the 6 dragons around the top. Oh, Jimmy not only rang it the first time, by the way, but rang the smaller hole for "double happiness"

This Pagoda has been around since the 14oo's. Its burned several times, but keeps getting rebuilt. Its 9 stories on the outside, but 17 inside. We didnt climb it because of said impending heat stroke.

If you visit the temple and pagoda, be prepared for lots of beggars when you get off the bus. Kathy instructed us not to give them anything because they would then follow us around the grounds and this annoys the monks and ruins the serenity of those trying to worship/pray/meditate whatever. That was hard for me. it stayed with me all day. Most of them seemed to have limb differences. Missing hands or arms. This really hit home to me, because missing hand or forarm was actually something Jimmy and I checked off on our waiting child form. Is this what waits the children on those lists that dont get adopted?