Guangxiang Si- Part 2

Still Sunday Pics- but since it's the work week & my evenings are taken up with dinners (mostly) I won't have too many pics to post for a few days, so I'm trying to stretch out the Temple & Emme Lu pics from Sunday. I did have a little bit of a late dinner tonight in order to go enjoy a very much needed Chinese Foot Massage... I went with two colleagues and was suddenly surprised to realize that I was translating not only what they said in Chinese to the two westerners, but I was also translating the English into Chinese the 3 Masseurs! I kept hearing "what did he say?" (Quick: Translate it to English!), then "What did they say?" (Quick: Translate it to Chinese!) The realization was very exciting!!!

Inside the main or central temple building at Guangxiang Si there were 3 beautiful gold covered Buddhas. They were incredibly tall, maybe 30 ft (?), and quite beautiful. In fact, they seemed to glow.
There was little decoration around the sides of the temple, the focus when you approached the main doors was really on the 3 immense Buddhas, with a small table far off to each side with a very small Buddha behind glass.
When you walk into a Buddhist temple, it is appropriate to walk in a clockwise direction, and as we were told in Tibetan temples, you should walk 3 times around the temple. I'm not certain of the significance of walking 3 times around a temple, but I will say that in most temples, having the opportunity to walk 3 times around the temple will allow you to spend more time looking at the intricacies that you may miss with just one or two times around.
Reuben took Emme Lu outside, and Linda & I walked around the temple and were quite surprised to see, as we rounded the wall behind the 3 main Buddhas, a 4th Buddha, of the same size, but different from the other 3. This was a woman & there were several people praying to her. What a surprise to see it, because from the front of the building, you were already awe inspired at the first 3, you truly could not expect that there would be a 4th!
Once outside, we walked around the walkway which encircled the main temple building. The walkway was ringed with a fence, on which were lions or guardian animals, placed about every 3-4 feet. They were a mix of old stone & new stone. Interestingly, the new stone animals were very clearly new stone & in perfect condition. The old stone animals clearly showed a great deal of degradation from years of weather, but also, had been decapitated. No doubt more casualties of the Cultural revolution. Yes that's Emme Lu in the background...