Episode 2: Sam Poo Kong

Last Sunday we went to visit this Chinese temple in Semarang called Sam Poo Kong. I certainly don't have anything much to say right now because it was my first visit to the temple so I don't know much about the place. My brother and dad told me some stories about the temple like what it was built for, etc. To be honest I wasn't really interested in the stories but more in the experience of having been there.

Here's a quote taken from Wikipedia explaining a little bit about Sam Poo Kong:

"As a result of its large ethnically Chinese population, the city boasts several Chinese temples. These include Sam Po Kong (Gedung Batu), built in honour of the Chinese Great Admiral Zheng He who visited the area in 1405. A 10.7 meter-tall bronze statue about Rp.1 billion ($115,000) with four languages (Indonesian language, English, Chinese and Japanese) of his brief history will be complemented the temple."

Something like that...

Now photos time!

The entrance. I don't know why I had to jump like that for the photo.

Ummm... and I thought wearing my dad's shades (which I was forced to wear!) would make a "better" photo... what a total failure. I mean, I hate the shades.

And, there was this Chinese writing which I have no idea what it says or means, and I was too bothered to ask. Bad tourist, me was!

Ummm... some statue? :-s

And, this is the big statue that was mentioned in the quote above. It was actually quite impressive.

And, there was this gigantic red door which I have no idea what's behind it. This wasn't the entrance. In fact, this was the opposite side of the temple complex from the entrance gate. I thought it was really cool to stand against it.

Behind me was the biggest temple in the complex which I went in to eventually... for more photos, of course.

A smaller temple right next to the big one.

Same (smaller) temple, just slightly different angle. Just for you to know, I wasn't standing in the pool (-__-)

Me and my brother standing in front of a small warehouse just right after we paid for the tickets. They kept equipment and tools in the warehouse for prayer purposes... I guess. :-S

This was like where the prayers and temple staff burned the 'papers'. :-S
Please correct me if I just gave a wrong explanation. All I saw inside it was ashes from papers.

Me in the big temple I mentioned earlier.

Same temple. I was posing and my brother took advantage of the reflection on the floor.

Stories about the temple as shown on the carved wall.

Showing the front side of the (big) temple. There were actually people having their prayers so we knew we had to be respectful.

I could have worked out the expression better!! :(

This was the third temple which had this cute looking statue of a turtle in front of it. This particular temple actually kept the anchor of the ship that the Chinese Great Admiral Zheng He was in. Oh, I touched the anchor... errr it was pretty awesome for me to think that I touched something so old and had a deep, serious history for an ancient civilization especially in Semarang.
That's it.

We left the temple for the mall to meet up with everyone else for lunch and everything else. The kids went to the mall to see Dora the Explorer sort of show where a man wore a Dora costume. It was boring for me so I went to Body Shop to get my current favorite shampoo(!) I got myself a Banana scented shampoo from them. Smells saw-gewd! Yes, it's that good. Definitely will get the conditioner of the same scent and the Green Apple body wash. My brothers have a bottle and I used it a couple of times and it smelled very refreshing.


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Post Scriptum:

The Japanese class has been postponed until the 31st. Sensei headed back to her hometown for holiday. How I miss the classes already! Seriously! :( I still haven't come up with a good idea for the Christmas cake for the kids! Yikes! :-S I have this idea but it requires marshmallows which are not anywhere to be found in any store in the town! Click here for Episode 1: Our Journey towards Semarang.