Another Temple

The other evening I told Kevin I wanted to get some photos of red lanterns. He took me to a local temple, but it was too windy to get long exposure photos. After Joy's Birthday meal, Kevin, HL, Joy and I went to another temple.

-- I just heard firecrackers outside. It's 9:30 AM. This set lasted about 15 seconds. "We haven't heard as many firecrackers and I expected. There were quite a few on New Year's Eve, but not a whole lot. Even HL thought there were not as many as in the past. --

This temple had a street market all aroound it. It reminded me of the Ephrata Fair. Joy got a batter operated rat lantern that plays "It's a Small World", very loudly. The first thing I did when we got home was put some tape over the sound opening to make it quieter.

The temple was large. There was a stage set up outside with spotlights shining into the sky. A large burner was located outside, spewing lots of smoke into the air. Enough bags of paper money to fill a few pickup trucks were stacked nearby, waiting to be burned. Lots of people were coming and going. There was a stand inside the temple where one could buy paper money and incense.

The inside of the temple was ornate as usual. There were so many people moving around I felt uncomfortable using the tripod. I handheld all of the the shots so I had to use a high ISO. Oh well.

We walked around the market a little bit after leaving the temple. I ate a corn dog (overrated). HL and Kevin ate some concoctions that looked like popsicles. I found out later that they were congealed blood mixed with rice. This is coated with peanut powder and sesame powder with some cilantro on top for good measure.

Joy played 3 games on the street. First up was a "poke and surprise box". It's a large box that is divided into many smalle squares. Surprises are placed into the squares. Then the whole thing is covered with paper with decorations printed on it. After paying a fee you may use a small hammer to poke a hole in the paper. You get to keep the prize that's inside.

The next game was bouncing ping pong balls into some tubes. Kevin, HL and Joy all played this.

The last game was a fishing game with a magnet on the end of a string. Joy did really well at this. In the end she got to choose a prize out of a large box. She picked a bubble play set.