Quanzhou

The following weekend we took a day trip to Quanzhou. This city is about one and a half hours north of Xiamen in Fujian Province. The city is located on the mainland - therefore we drove through a long tunnel and on superhighways to reach Quanzhou.

The "old" city is indeed quite old. While there we visited a "working" Buddhist monastery, a Tao temple, the remains of the oldest Muslim temple in China, and a puppet museum!

The Buddhist monastery was amazing - with two huge pagoda type towers flanking its north and south sides. I did acquire prayer sticks and prayed for all of my friends and family. The intense smell of the prayer sticks was gorgeous and filled the air with a sense of spirituality.

From there, we walked to the remains of the Muslim temple. I was a bit surprised by the presence of Islam throughout China. People come to this temple and pray in the newer structure that is being constructed next to it.

We then walked to the Taoist temple - which was lively with many people offering prayers and gifts of food. One ritual I observed is the dropping of two wooden curved pieces. The way the pieces fall and their shape on the ground indicates if the prayer request is going to be positive, negative, or "not yet".



The south tower




After obtaining a prayer stick, they are placed in this... reminded me of lighting candles in Church.



These are the prayer sticks



You can see one of the monks to the left




This tree is ancient and holds special meaning for those in the monastary




This is a prayer tablet




These trees are all over Fujian province - the hangings actually grow to the gound and take root



We ate lunch at a restaurant called "Blue Nun" of all things! We then walked the streets - had our photos taken ( of course) and then visited the Puppet Museum. The Chinese apparently love puppet shows. These marionettes are absolutely gorgeous with intricate costumes and detailed faces and hands. Some of them have up to 30 strings and can be manipulated in incredible ways.