That morning 8:27 am, I was getting ready to deeply explore Kaohsiung. A sliver of toast, a banana and a cup of tea became a free breakfast which provided by the hostel that morning.
felt like at home
Apparently, That Vietnamese and Indo-American backpackers were still asleep in Paper Plane Hostel’s clean and soft beds. They certainly enjoyed traveling in their ways which were different from mine. They looked more relax than me who is always agile everywhere for chasing time. My minimum budget that required me to visit many destinations in shorter vacation time.
Yes, I only slept in this cool hostel for a night because in next morning I would check out and leave my backpack at reception. I would take back it after completing my visitation on my last day in Kaohsiung.
MRT slowly moved away from Houyi Station and drove me to Kaohsiung Main Station.
My eyes were immediately aware from an existence of bus terminal near this MRT station.
Yess … I was indeed hunting for a bus towards the largest Buddhist monastery in Taiwan i.e Fo Guang Shan.
What is Fo Guang Shan? …..
Based on a reference which I got, It was an order in Buddhism that was very well-known in its efforts to modernize Buddhism in China. Because this order is very technologically literate … That’s about it.
In several minutes, I din’t see yet a bus number 8010 or 8011 which came into terminal, finally I asked someone who I thought he was a bus timer.
Maybe, because of often ask by tourists, it doesn’t take long time for him to understand my question. And I was asked to wait for the bus at end side of terminal.
Finally, The bus arrived.…got in it from front door, I asked driver whether the bus was really heading there. After saying “yes”, I immediately paid for about USD 2 and he gave me a ticket.
The journey began:
The joy of that day began with a pinky interior.
35 km journey with 45 minutes travel time was unable to make my eyes closed against my preoccupation on observing charms of Kaohsiung streets. Observing local people’s activities and passing various landmarks made me stunned along the way.
The front yard before entering monastery
I finally arrived …
There is no charge for entering this Buddhist monastery. Through front lobby, I found several shops which sell jewelry and souvenirs and several coffee shops (one of them is Starbuck) also.
I wasn’t interested in this area because I didn’t carry an adequate budget….Immediately come out and I found an incredible view:
Size of monastery plaza is very wide and became a camera’s target by anyone who visited this place.
Get close to Buddha statue! … surely you will be more impressed:
Under Buddha statue is location of Buddhist Museum and there are several prayer rooms for visitors.
I was also welcome to entering worship room to just see how worship procession do.
1.5 hours was a very valuable time because I could visit this place.
I closed my hunger by eating a serving of dinsum. I got it from a canteen which located in parking lot in front of monastery.
By the way, it was on 13:15 hrs.… I still had a lot of time … Where was my next destination?
Taiwan sepertinya lebih menarik daripada Hongkong ya, Don?
Kalo transportasinya gampang ngga di sana?
*berharap ada free hop on bus
Taiwan Oke lah drpd HongKong…. HongKong terlalu padet jadi ga dapat view eksotiknya…. Transportasi di Taiwan gampang banget dan murah banget….. Kalau Hop on Bus, Aku belum pernah pakai. Bus itu ada di Taipe. So, coba luangkan waktu deh kesana bareng misua😁😁😁
Wiii boleh juga tu. Transportasi yang gampang itu pertimbangan penting buat aku traveling sih.
Tenkyu infonya, Don.
Siip deh, Wulan 😁