Buddha Island

Last weekend we went to an island off the coast. We hiked around the trails and saw too many Buddha's to count. Every trail led to another Buddha prayer temple. We woke up super early and still almost missed our bus as usual. We got on the bus around 5:30am and drove around picking up randoms all over the city. It took a couple hours for our bus to get to where we were going so a ferry could take us to the islands.

We finally got onto the ferry around 9am and took a short ride to the islands off the coast. I have never gotten sea sick or motion sickness before, but being in the dungeon of that boat with no windows and swaying back and forth did me in. It was not my finest hour. As we were getting off the boat we saw this warning. I don't know why, but I could not stop laughing at it. We read it as oh-stackles and my sleep deprived body said it in as many accents as it knew and it was the funniest thing ever at that moment in time. OHSTACKLES!

Our first stop was a Buddha prayer temple. The people could pray to Buddha or they could pray for their wishes to be put into the atmosphere.

We put our wishes into the atmosphere rather than praying to Buddha. We got incense to burn and knelt to concentrate on what we wanted. It was kind of weird, felt like I was praying to a false God or something. I wasn't praying to Buddha, I just put positive thoughts about what I wanted out in the open. Once we were done we put our sticks of incense into a pit to let them finish burning. 

These were some of the crazy reincarnated Buddha figures we saw. The second one had some crazy eyebrows going on and I felt I could relate to him. Although his were a mile long and braided, mine are just getting bushier the longer I'm here.

Madi and I. She was my buddy throughout the day. We had a deep conversation about slugs that day. It was along the lines of how we are so grateful we aren't slugs and don't get stuck to tires and spin in circles all day. We wondered if they have couches in their shells to rest on at night. I felt enlightened afterwards. Whole new outlook on life.

This girl and her group of friends found us every where. Every 30 minutes or so we would see them around and it was funny to wave and smile each time. I mainly got a picture with her because of her super awesome hair cut. She has a bob, but her extensions went down her back. Super stylish!

These ladies were hilarious. It started out as one lady, then two, then three. We were just smiling and taking a hundred pictures when one grabbed Madi's hand and held it out. Everyone else just kind of followed along. It's funny how the women here always fight over us. Like who gets to stand next to us or who holds our hands or who has to take the picture. These ladies were super happy we took pictures with them and it took us ages to escape them and their giddiness. 

America is somewhere behind me! I looked really hard, but it was too foggy for me to see you guys :(

This was a fence kind of like the one in France where you lock your love onto the gate and throw the key into the river. You did the same thing here except it was in a forest and there was no where to throw your key. You could carve your names into the locks and put them next to others who locked their love to the fence. There were so many locks lining the walkway, I loved it. So much love!

It may be hard to tell, but that is a huge swarm of goldfish (koi fish?). There were so so so many of them. I was mind blown. There were even more on the other side of the pond near a bridge we crossed to reach our next adventure. 

This Buddha was huge. Like huge huge. No one could stand directly in front of it so I didn't get any good pictures of the good ol guy.

I snuck a picture of these monks. I surprisingly don't feel bad or guilty about it! Real life monks! It wasn't as serene and peaceful as the movies made them seem. It was actually pretty loud with lots of loud prayers and music.

Yes, Folks..... the beach. We strayed away from our group and went to Thousand-Pace Beach. It was so much fun to be on a completely new coast on the other side of the world, but still be playing in the same ocean as I do back home. It wasn't as clean as the beaches back home, but it was still just as exciting. The water was a bit browner and the sand had a bit more trash (and bones?) in it than any California beach Ive been too.

(One of the world biggest Buddhas is behind me and so is America)

Madi, me, Jennie, Kenzie, and Kaylie

We made some friends. They were so excited to take pictures with us. They were a bit photo-challenged when in came to us asking them to take pictures of us. They were all crooked... made the memories even better!

My favorite part of the whole day was walking along the beach. We put our cameras away and just sat on the beach and lived in the moment. We took it all in and it was so great. We are always having photo shoots wherever we go and it was nice to sit down for five minutes and just watch the waves trickle onto the sand.