Old Town Centre of Taipei

                I didn’t make it until noon.  The moment I had written “zoo animal” that is what I felt like. I felt trapped and confined in what is actually a rather spacious hotel room.  I made the decision that I would go out just for a short walk.  Turn to the right, I said to myself, just walk straight and don’t cross any streets.  I would just check it out before I felt more confined and unwilling to get out into Taiwan.

                My goals would be simple and attainable.  Stay out for an hour, find an ATM, get some money, and find a store.  After much pacing back and forth in my room, preparing for a short stroll as though I was preparing to set off cross country (though I suppose that is easier in Taiwan than other places) I left my hotel for the first time.  A quick glance to the right revealed that there were no sidewalks to be had.  “Left,” I said out loud, hoping that it would stick better that way after repearing 'right' to myself a million times before that.  I turned to the left in time to catch a young man taking a photo of me.  I shot him a glare and he responded by taking another photo.

                There.  Now I truly felt like I had returned to Asia.

                Though I had strolled so confidently past the hotel lobby where Comedy and Tragedy still sat, I realized that I needed help finding an ATM.  I recalled their inability to speak English and flipped open my China language guide to the short section on Mandarin and found the word for ATM.  I walked up to them confidently.

                Comedy picked up the phone as I walked in and began making a call, she pointed to Tragedy and I got the feeling that she simply didn’t want to talk to me.

                Great… I thought sourly to myself.  “Ni hao!” I said with a smile.  “Nali,” this time I got the tones of the word sorted, falling raising, and then falling for “where”.  I opened my mouth to read the word for ATM, but I faltered, “Zidong…uh…zi…”  I turned the book over and pointed at the Chinese characters for her to read.

                “Zidong qukuanji?  You need to find an ATM?” she asked.

                I could only blink for several moments.  “Um…yes.  Yes.”

                “Okay!” she said with a smile.  “Come with me.  I will show you.”

                So I followed her back into the heat of the day, the rough streets of Taoyuan City.

                Still animated, she turned back to face me, a look of almost panic across her face.  “You need an ATM?  Or you need to exchange money?”

                I shook my head, “An ATM is fine.”

                Her bright smile returned.  She held her hand to the left, “There is a 7-11 there.  They have ATM.  But,” she motioned kitty-corner, just across the street, “If you have to exchange money there is a bank there.  You can exchange money there.”

                “I don’t have to exchange money.”

                “But you can there,” she reminded me.

                I nodded in understanding.

                She nodded back with a final sort of, “Okay.”

                I thanked her and set about my tasks for the day, wishing I hadn’t nicknamed her Tragedy the night before as it seemed wholly inappropriate in the light of day.

                Taoyuan was not what I had been promised at all.  Taipei.  How many times had I been told Taipei?  I hadn’t yet seen Taipei, but I imagined it with sidewalks.  I hopped here and there in order to cross the street, weaving through crowded and narrow sidewalks (crowded with scooters awaiting repair and boxes of who knows what) before I had to jump down and into the lanes of oncoming traffic when the sidewalk suddenly disappeared.

                The trek to the 7-11 wasn’t all that bad.  There was sidewalk most of the way and the ATM was pushed into the corner next to the hot coffee like it had been for all of the Korean convenient stores (and maybe in US stores too, but I never need cash there).  Upon feeding the machine my card it gave me the option of English and things proceeded smoothly.  It would have been less so had I not deleted a 0 when I nearly took out 30,000 NT, which would have been near 1000 USD when I wanted only 100USD.  But crisis averted, I had completed the tasks of finding an ATM and getting some money.

                The next task was mostly burning the clock.  I thought how much of a baby I was being.  I told myself that I was saying that Taoyuan had nothing of interest to put off being brave and adventurous.  But as I walked I began to wonder if this was true.

                More scooter shops.

                Empty storefronts.

                A chain burger joint that had seen far better days (I could only hope).

                Maybe I could turn down this street and-nope, just brick walls.

                I had been out about forty-five minutes and decided that I had been right to start with. Taoyuan sucks.  Villahermosa level sucks.  I headed back towards my hotel, keeping a better eye out for a grocery store of some sort.

                Apparently while I had been focused on 7-11 I had not noticed the store directly next door to the hotel.  My last task was waiting for me upon my return.  I entered and drew looks from all around, but felt a sense of pride in having dragged my jet-lagged ass out of my room to actually get something done instead of waiting for my next meal to arrive.

                Alright, Chelsea. I thought to myself.  Find something you’ve never had or seen before and buy it.  Ooo! Is that kimchi!?!  No…focus…  But I had seen all of it before.  Produce lined one side in open refrigerated shelves: fruits I had eaten, kimchi, milks and yogurts, eggs, tofu, lotus root.  I could name everything in that aisle.  On the opposite side was microwave meals of curries and such, but without a microwave, even if it was brand new, I couldn’t eat it.  Ramen and pasta filled the next aisle.  The ramen, or ramyun in this case, was even the famous Korean brand.

                Finally I grabbed carrot cookies, putting back the pineapple cake knowing it couldn’t actually be that different, as well as the kimchi and some “ohayo” brand chopsticks.  It didn’t feel terribly Taiwanese, but at least carrot cookies was something.

                I returned to my room with plenty of time before noon and snacked slowly on my items, waiting for my food.

                It never came.

                By the time two o’ clock rolled around I had given up on it and finished my purchased food.  I was thoroughly confused as to what this “provided food” meant.  Perhaps I was meant to drink the tea for breakfast and have the burger for lunch?

                A nap would make me feel better I decided.  I have an inability to nap in most circumstances, but I was worn out enough that I thought I would give it a shot.  I crawled into bed, setting my dress to the side and sleeping in my underwear.  After a lot of moving this way and that in the sunlight filled room, I felt that I might drift off to sleep.

                Knock, knock.

                It didn’t take another set of knocks for me to lunge out of bed.  I had my dress in hand but it had got twisted up in its cut out back.

                I could hear women speaking in Chinese outside of my door.  But I didn’t know what to say to make them not come in.  I continued to struggle with my dress as their key turned in my door.  “Yes!” I called out.  “Hello!”

                They were not thwarted by my clever tactics.

                Dress still tangled up in itself I slid it over myself, finding only one arm hole to use, but being mostly covered.  I stepped out from around the corner to block their entrance into my room.  “Um…”

                Again, my way with words did not serve me.  They stood at me, taking in my sleepy eyes, disheveled hair, and bright blue bra-strap where there ought to be a sleeve.

                They spoke to me in Chinese.

                “Uh…” I could only shake my head and continue to block their entrance.

                “Bu yao,” the woman said.

                I knew that one!  Don’t want.  “Bu yao,” I repeated, shaking my hands in front of me and shaking my head.

                Both women, the one in my room with a mop and the one behind her pushing a small cart, began to laugh boisterously.  “Sorry, sorry,” the with the mop one said through her laughter as she left and shut the door behind her.  I heard them laugh all the way down the hallway.

                I wondered as I dragged myself back to bed if they had been coming to see the leak I had been complaining about.  But there wasn’t anything I could do about it.  My productivity was limited to deciding to nap clothed.

                My second nap attempt was interrupted as well.  I begrudgingly returned to the door to find Tragedy ready to inspect the leak and take me to my new room.

                “I will take you there.  And you can say if it is okay or no,” she offered.

                So I changed rooms to a nearly identical one, except this one had no leak.  I took the key back downstairs and was surprised by the “pack” that I had been promised.  I took the one for my roommate who would be coming very shortly at that point.

                T-shirts and instructions for the camp came in the pack, as well as my food allowance and an explanation that the hotel provided breakfast.  Hence the burger.

                Later that night, my roommate arrived.  Instead of a full of herself, didn’t want to travel with me, twenty-something Joanna that I had created in my head, a mature, retired lawyer Joan showed up.  We chatted for a while about our combined awkward experiences and decided that we both wanted to head out to explore Taipei the next day and would do so together.

                Our day ought to have started far earlier than it did.  But we wanted our free breakfast, damn it.  I told Joan that my food had shown up about 8am the day before, and so we sat and chatted and planned for the day until nearly 9 before we saw fit to ask if food was going to come.

                Tragedy and a young man were at the front desk when I arrived to ask.

                “Is there going to be breakfast?” I wanted to be clear, but tried my best not to sound presumptuous.

                She looked at me a bit confused, as though she had not heard me correctly.  “Uh…yes.  Here,” she motioned with her hand but moved out from behind the counter deciding it would be best to walk us there.  “The restaurant has breakfast.”

                Just beyond the hotel lobby was a room of vacant tables and a buffet line of Taiwanese fare.  There were side dishes of cabbage, greens, rice noodles, eggs, and much more, plenty to ensure I didn’t have to ingest a single bite of meat!  There was rice and porridge, coffee and milk tea.  Steamed buns, this first steamed buns I had ever seen without filling, sat in a warmer, ready to eat.

                We filled our plates to overflowing and sipped coffee leisurely once we had eaten.

                This was the provided breakfast.

                I have no idea why I had received a burger the day before.

                “Wonderful!” Joan called to Tragedy as we finished and were ready to leave.  “Thank you very much!  My name.  Is Joan.  What is your name?”

                She looked surprised.  “Oh.  My name Rita,” she said with as smile and a jerking sort of bow.

                I hadn’t thought to ask since, the first night, it seemed so clear that she didn’t speak any English and that my shortest attempts at Chinese were unintelligible.  But Rita.  That seemed much more appropriate than Tragedy.  I introduced myself as well with a bow, thanking her and the others in the restaurant for a wonderful breakfast.

                Armed with a bus number and a plan for the day I asked Rita how to get to the bus station.

                She seemed appalled.  “Where will you go?”

                “Taipei.”

                “You take the train.  It is very convenient.”

                And convenient it was.  It was between a five and ten minute walk from our hotel and fairly simple.  We purchased a public transit card (a yoyoca) at the same 7-11 where I took out money and loaded it at the same counter.

FIRST TIME ON TRA/MRT

                I couldn’t help but think that Taiwan’s public transit system was a lot like Korea’s.  For those of you without that particular frame of reference: good.  It is really good.  We stood at the train station, having walked through the queue and scanning our yoyoca.

                For the TRA, the train that we needed to take from Taoyuan City into Taipei, and that goes all over Taiwan as well, as well as the MRT, the metro system within Taipei, you pay the same as in Korea: by distance.  You scan when you enter and you scan when you leave at it charges you accordingly.  However, buses are different as we would find out when we tried to scan our cards the same way.  You only pay once for buses as it is a flat rate.

                “Is…is this the right one…?” we stared at the signs, every last one of them in Chinese, and then at the tracks across the way.

                “Excuse me,” Joan asked to a young, shy looking Taiwanese woman, “Do you speak English?”

                The woman giggled and shook her head and hands, “No.” she said through a laugh, repeating it six or so more times to be sure we didn’t try to speak to her any more.

                “Taipei?” Joan continued.

                The woman covered her mouth and turned towards her boyfriend, who had also begun laughing and was physically turning the woman back to us and egging her on.  “Yes,” she finally managed.  “Taipei.”

                Good enough.

                We waited patiently for our train to arrive and, as we were doing so, another woman, this one perhaps in her late forties or early fifties, came up to us.

                Crystal.  This woman had lived in the US for the past 27 years with her husband of the time, and then to continue raising her daughter who hated Taiwan.  She told us about how, now that her daughter is in law school, she had purchased a condo in DC flat out and given it to her daughter.  In doing so she felt that her motherly duties had been fulfilled and she had come back to the country she had missed so much.  She was very proud of all the progress that Taiwan had made and was thrilled to be back.  She was maybe more thrilled to tell us all about it and appoint herself our guide to public transit.

                It brought me back to Mexico City.  Like Mexico City’s metro, Taipei’s MRT consists of lines from one end to the other, no loops, and you simply find the last station on either end and that tells you which direction you will be going.  It is also color-coded, making it a snap to follow.

                But unlike the sweet unnamed woman in Mexico, Crystal insisted.  She lead us through transferring at the Taipei Main Station and showed us to follow the signs labeled “MRT” and then the signs with our needed color to get to the right place.

                And with that, she left.

                The best way to navigate the MRT is to download the app “TaipeiMetro”.  It is just a map, but this map is in both English and Chinese, making it easy for English speakers to read, and easy to ask the locals for directions as you can just point to the Chinese.  Though there are no shortages of Crystals to get you from point A to point B if your eyes are big and confused enough.

CHIANG KAI-SHEK MEMORIAL

                Just off of the red line (line 2) or the green line (line 3), Chiang Kia-Shek Memorial Hall has its own stop and, once you get up on the street, it is hard to miss.  The hall and its surrounding buildings are enormous and gaudy.  The colors of the hall, having been finished in 1980 hasn’t had time to fade and stood out brightly against the much more subdued blue of the sky.

                We came upon it on the side of the concert hall and assumed we had to walk through the building.

                “I think that that’s just a gift shop,” I called to Joan who had stepped up to a door.

                But she hadn’t been thinking of the memorial hall, she had been dreaming of air conditioning.  “Well, let’s just step in for a bit.”

                We stepped into the AC and moved to the right hand side first, a book shop with little trinkets, but they weren’t really themed for the building they resided in.  I stumbled upon packs of postcards that I thought were perfect, though I would find out later that they were the same postcards sold at every major sight in Taipei.  I was excited anyway and purchased them along with the proper postage for them to make it to their destination.

                The other side of the air conditioning, er, I mean room, was a sort of café.  I ordered myself papaya milk, something I had never tasted before, and sat down to start to write some postcards and enjoy the coolness o f the room while I could.

                Having finished our drinks and food we moved through the quiet building until we reached a door to the outdoors where we stepped onto the center complex.

                The tiles were arranged in partial circles going this was and that.  It had a dizzying effect that brought my eyes upward and away from the ground, but it stretched on so far that it was hard to fully look away while still taking in the scene around me.

                Tourists filled the square, but up the stairs to the concert hall some Taiwanese were practicing choreography with fans.  Across the way there was music, and behind us there was construction going on.  With all of this real life going on in all directions, myself and the other tourists seemed to be funneled from the square in the center towards the memorial hall.

                89.  That is how many steps were supposed to be from the ground up to his statue.  I don’t know why I couldn’t take their word for it.  Joan was appreciating the beauty of the sights around us a speaking to me, but I only offered back uninterested “uh-huh”s and nods as I focused on my counting.

                The golden statue sat before us.  A flag sat on either side and, a little bit closer to the velvet ropes keeping us at bay, stood two life-sized statues of guards.

                Fuck!  My heart leapt into my throat as I realized that those unmoving statues were people.  I don’t know why it caused me such a jolt, but felt better when it caused Joan the same level of distress.  The stared blankly at one another and I found myself staring at the one to the right, waiting for him to move or blink or falter in some way.  But it didn’t happen.  I did, however, catch the other one shift unsteadily on his feet and fight back a smile.  My head snapped to the other side hoping to catch the one on the right cracking a smile back at the one on the left.  No such luck.

                The ceiling extended upwards for what felt like forever and, in a deep dome, housed a white sun on a blue background.  Try as I might, it was simply too big to get a decent picture and I had to settle for a less than mediocre one and some extra gawking to make up for it.

                The information desk informed us that the guards change ever hour, on the hour, and we could wait another 45 minutes to see the next one.  We decided not to.

2-28 PEACE PARK

                It wasn’t until I had already showed them the Chinese characters in my Lonely Planet and flashed them a smile that I realized I had asked the wrong people.  I made a mental note that this was what Taiwanese hooligans looked like.  But it was too late.  I wasn’t about to show them that their cold stares and snarling frowns made me nervous.  They dismissed me with some angry sounding Chinese and a woman with short-cropped hair stood, dropping her cigarette and looking at me challengingly.  She stood at maybe 5’1’’, but I decided to give them a quick bow, a “Xiexie” and take my leave.

                “They didn’t know?” Joan asked when I returned to her.

                I shook my head, “I guess not,” and I walked quickly to the main road figuring I could ask literally anyone else.

                Seeing the Presidential Office Building in the distance before us and knowing that the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall was behind us, we are able orient ourselves and easily find the park to our right.

                This park is dedicated to those who died in the series of massacres that began on February 28^th, 1947.  While it was a beautiful park with water features, plants, paths, and playgrounds with children running about, there was a peaceful and respectful sort of silence, even in the midst of Taipei. 

                Coming upon a stone foot path, I paused.  Looking both ways as though I were about to cross the street, I considered continuing on, but found myself slipping off my flats and gathering my maxi skirt in one hand.  The feeling couldn’t be described as pleasant or comfortable.  I started down the path with every intention to take just a few steps, but ended up all the way down the path before I realized this meant I would have to walk all the way back again.  At the other end, Joan passed off her phone to a Japanese tourist and joined me on the path.

                I watched as the pain registered on her face and she reached out to grab my arm for support, relieving her own discomfort by pushing me farther down into the stone.   I let out a combined scream of pain and a laugh as Joan continued with her “oh, oh, oh…ow…oh…”

                This was the only moment that the man captured.

                We walked by the 2-28 Memorial Museum and saw the white ribbons and photos mourning the loss of life in the terrible massacres.  I used the lack of English in the museum as an excuse not to go in, but if truth be told I simply wasn’t ready to go from a stroll in the park and laughing on the stone path to hearing of the horrible acts of violence that people are capable of.  We continued on and I made an effort not to look back on the ribbons, but they had left a weight on me.

                I’m not sure if I regret not going in.

PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE BUILDING

                It was nearly midday at this point, and the sun was unforgiving.  Clouds loomed someplace off on the horizon, but served only as a tease and a source of more humidity.  And also to be a blemish on my pictures of the Presidential Office Building.  The walk towards the enormous red and white building was full of wondering if we could go in.  The guidebook spoke of “exhibits”, but was I reading the correct entry?

                Another tourist asked us to take her picture and we decided to ask her.  She informed us that you had to make an appointment “three days in advance”, which she hadn’t done either.

                “We’ll just ask,” Joan said.  “If we start walking past what would they do?”  She joked (I hoped she was joking) that if we don’t get kicked out of at least one building then it wasn’t an adventure.

                As we got closer I asked her to pick a building to get kicked out of that wasn’t surrounded by armed guards and army trucks.  It didn’t look terribly inviting.

                I lowered my eyes as we turned the corner on the block and a helmeted man holding a gun over half as long as the man was tall.

XIMENDING

                I can’t say how thrilled I am with the openness and helpfulness of the Taiwanese people.  They truly want to share their country with you and make sure that you find anything and everything you need.

                That being said, this woman was not going to find what we wanted.

                My tactic in these circumstances was to thank them and wait until they leave to find what I really wanted.  But this wasn’t meshing well.

                “No,” Joan said, “Not just coffee.  Food.”  She pantomimed eating for the woman.

                The woman, who had walked us more than a dozen blocks to this particular café spoke in Chinese with the woman working there.  She turned back to us after a lengthy discussion.  “You can buy bread downstairs and bring it up her and drink coffee and eat your bread.

                Before Joan or I could say I word she had lead us back into the elevator.  The doors chimed as they opened happily back into the humidity and the woman motioned us towards to the affiliated bakery.

                I spoke before anyone else could, “Thank you for all your help!  We will look around.”  I gave her a smile and she smiled back, wishing us a wonderful time in Taiwan and hurrying off to whatever she had been doing before she had appointed herself our guide.

                Joan said that she didn’t particularly want to eat bread and I told her that I was in agreement, but that that woman was going to show us a million places when it would be easier to just walk through the shopping district and find something.  Joan nodded in agreement.  "Coffee maker," she said.  We had come up with this expression after the men at breakfast kindly spent well over half and hour trying to figure out a coffee maker in order to give us coffee that was nice, but had become much more important to them than it was to us.

                We walked down several streets that sold only shoes, followed by only clothing stores, and moved through Ximending in this fashion.  Logically we thought we would come across a section that was only food.

                I stopped only briefly at a vendor selling some sort of liquid that I was ready to purchase before I was pulled away.  We had been appointed another guide.

                This one took us quite a ways telling us she would take us to good food.  It was several blocks before she announced that we were nearly to the Japanese restaurant.

                “Is there Taiwanese food?” I asked hopefully.  I honestly hadn’t seen any.  Not street food or restaurants or anything but Japanese food for days, maybe 6 McDonalds, MosBurgers, HotBurgers, and on and on.  What did the Taiwanese people eat?

                “Taiwanese food?!” she stopped in her tracks and looked back at me in almost disgust.

                I tried to stop just as abruptly, but nearly walked right into her.  “Yes,” I said as I righted myself once more.  “What is a good Taiwanese food?”

                “Beef noodle soup?” she asked as though I was the one to know.

                I could feel the corners of my mouth turn down at the word “beef”.  I had to remember that, like in Korea, this month broth was simply a reality for me.  So I nodded.

                The place she took us to was cooled by a tiny and ineffective fan and the free cold tea they offered.  The menu fortunately came in English, but the sheet of paper they handed us that we were expected to check off what we wanted did no.  I called them over and pointed to the noodle soup.

                It came quickly and with enormous chunks of beef in it.

                I couldn’t do it.  I pushed them to the side and ate the noodles and vegetables.  My vegetarian hearts bleeds to tell you that it was quite good.  My frugal heart rejoices that it was 100NT (about 3USD).

RED HOUSE

                Ximending was not precisely what I expected.  It was a mixture of crowded stores selling things clearly for locals, such as scooter parts and kitchen supplies, as well as clothes and shoes and the like.  But the reason I had really chosen it was for the Red House (Red Pavilion our guidebook said, but nowhere else did as it called this).

                Ximending had tons of maps posted all over with a compass rose and “you are here”.  It listed the Red House and we made our way there, not sure exactly what to look for.

                “Hold on,” I stopped our forward motion.  “Let’s look at that cool building for just one second.

                We took what we thought was a detour to take a picture of a brick building that looked quite old in a very commercial district.

                There was a summer camp full of children all in neon green that ran up to us happily.

                “Hello!” Joan called with a big wave.  “What is this building?”

                The girl turned to look at it.  “This is a very old building,” she said, satisfied with her English and smiling to show it.

                “Well I can see that,” Joan said with a laugh.  She continued her discussion with them, announcing that we were English teachers and asking for a show of hands of who spoke English.  They all put their hands up, though I wondered who fully understood the question.

                The children took to her like I took to the building.  I saw a sign and made a beeline for it.

                “Red House,” it proclaimed in English.  It described the same history as the “Red Pavillion” and I realized that they were one and the same.

                “Joan!” I called over to my companion, but she was in the midst of taking pictures and bonding with the children.  “This is it!” I called anyway.

                We made our way into the octagonal building to a place that was part museum, part café, part gift shop, and all air conditioned.  Most of the building was still functional, for music performances and the like, so the reading of the information took only a few minutes, but I marveled at the state of a 1000-year old building, but at the same time, was surprised at its plainness.

TIEN-HO TEMPLE

                “One of central Taipei’s most beautiful Buddhist temples,” Lonely Planet told me.  And it was just next to the Red House.  Popsicles in hand, we left the Red House and walked back towards the intersection.  We didn’t cross any streets, just walked around a clothing store in the way and into a very commercial street.

                In the Taipei heat my roselle popsicle had been reduced to slush before we made it to the street corner.

                We walked farther than we thought we needed to.  And then we walked some more.

                I consulted the map that assured me it was there.  Somewhere.

                We circled around the back of the Red House to try again.  “You know,” I said to Joan, “That is a very old building.”

                “Is it now?” she asked with a smile.

                Back at the clothing store we had circled around before we looked again.  All the way down the road all we could see were shops.  Narrow storefronts, like the ones that Lonely Planet had mentioned, lines the streets crowded closely together, but not a temple in sight.

                The woman in the clothing store was not particularly happy to see us, guidebook in hand, obviously about to ask for directions.  “Wait,” she said curtly without a glance in our direction.

               We started to wait, but I really wasn’t much good at it.  And there was a group of Taiwanese, probably college aged.  The boy in the group was glancing our way and nonchalantly dancing to hip-hop music inside the store.  “How did he make such an action nonchalant?” you ask.  He didn’t.  But it was clear nonchalance was what he was going for.  His eyes kept darting in our direction and then looking away whenever we spoke to one another.  The tell-tale sign that he spoke English.

               We called the group over who were more than happy to speak to us in English, trying to point out a sign in Chinese that told us where to go.  I nodded after saying I didn't see if a dozen times and told him we would find it anyway.

                Moving away from the station we walked on the right side of the street, but still could almost have passed it by.  It was no bigger than one of the tiny storefronts around it and we wondered if this was it.  But walking inward, there wasn’t any doubt.

                Water streamed down into a small koi pond on one side, a miniature temples built into the rock like they were cliff faces.  A man leaned over the water, ignoring the statues of an elephant on dragon shooting water, and looking instead the excited koi churning the water and hoping to be fed.  I took a few steps up the stairs toward the temple and took in the scene of people praying, moving from one spot to the next in a solemn sort of way.

                As people passed I dropped my head in a meek sort of bow and no one seemed to particularly mind me.  But I took in the scene from the outside, unwilling to stand in the way of something that was so solemn to them.  I stood off to the side and looked in, able to see the back of the temple with the grand golden statues and fruits piled on a long table.  People held their incense and bowed solemnly, eyes shut tight in thought and prayer.

                The detail of the temple was beautiful, but the people inside struck me the most.  I moved out of the way towards the exit where I could still see the intricacies of the statues on the building and the people milling about inside.  I could smell the incense and hear the chanting like music.

                I admitted that I didn’t know how much was appropriate for me to be in the way of or taking pictures of.  I felt like an intruder, a voyeur, on something that was very important and sacred to them.  But I felt content just being near it and hoped that they didn’t mind me on the outskirts.

                I placed a few coins in the beggar’s hand how stood to meet me as I left.  I hoped, a penance for tromping through their temple and thanks for welcoming me anyway.