Valley of the Temples

Playing: Your Song-Elton John
Reading: Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Whenever I'm in Hawaii, I always visit Valley of the Temples to see the wonderful Buddhist temple they have there. Even if you're not Buddhist, you should go because everything is so well thought out. Even the gift shop is nice. In no way does it feel touristy there because well, not many tourists think to visit a cemetery for a Buddhist temple. When you drive up to Valley of the Temples, it is a cemetery, but keep on driving towards the back, where the temple is.

It costs $1-$3 to get in and you walk down a beautiful, red bridge and while on the bridge, you get to see all of Hawaii's natural, tropical plants. The thin trees that look like anorexic palm trees are actually papaya trees. My dad grew up on Hawaii and he told me that, so I'm assuming that's true.

Behind the temple, you can see Hawaii's famous mountains that you may have seen on Lost. The temple itself is quite impressive and is very peaceful. Perfectly tranquil, very fitting for a temple.

The temple houses a large Buddha in the middle and like most Buddhist temples, you must take off your shoes before entering. This is the main thing people come to see, but there's much more.

If you go into the gift shop, you can buy a bag of koi food for $1 and feed the koi. There aren't just koi there. I believe there are some sort of tilapia in there too. My little cousin, Kenji, enjoyed feeding the kois, but he enjoyed feeding the birds even more. If you hold your hand out to the blue-grey birds and stay still, they'll eat the koi food right out of your hand.

There are several wild black swans that live there. They're beautiful creatures and I haven't seen these in awhile, so I had to grab a photo. So many people were trying to get photos with the swan, but I don't suggest that because it'll run away. Once you've looked around the temple and fed the koi, you can still walk on the trails and look at the huge bell there. I hope you liked this post. I'm trying to make my blog a tad more informational and helpful. Maybe interest you in some travel, eh?