Wat Hua Lampong

Today I went with my boss to meet with our travel agent to begin making the arrangements to send this year's batch of temporary foreign teachers back home to the USA.

I'll be getting my ticket home soon as well!

The travel agency was downtown, on the other side of Chulalongkorn University, Thailand's oldest and most prestigious. Leaving the office, Wat Hua Lampong across the street caught my attention. I've been once before with Pinky, but thought I've got some time now, since I'm here, I'll go look around.

the temple

Wat Hua Lampong is a third-grade royal temple, but it's not a big popular tourist spot like the Emerald Buddha or any of the big river temples. It's popular and busy, but not so well-known with foreigners. It's really more a neighborhood temple.

downtown

What seems so odd about it though is how it's right in the middle of downtown surrounded by skyscrapers! I'm sure the temple was definitely there first; the contrast is just quite noticeable.

Buddhas

There was some sort of Chinese New Year celebration going on. An old monk was talking into a microphone which was playing around the temple grounds. The only words I could make out were "Chinese New Year" in English. That's odd too, because Thai has it's own name for this festival!

a golden chedi

There isn't anything really that unique about the temple. It's not as memorable as the Golden Mount, or Temple of the Dawn, but it's huge; big and impressive and imposing!

traditional Thai temple architecture

And it's busy! The last time I visited was with Pinky to buy coffins for poor and homeless people. It's a very popular temple for charitable or merit-making acts. That part, a Chinese-style hall, is open 24-hours, and I assume it's always fairly busy with late-night merit-makers.

beautiful temple building

Sometimes I don't have much to say on my blog, but I just want to show interesting pictures of beautiful places in Bangkok! If I'm not traveling, my daily life in Bangkok is more or less a routine, but I know it still might be interesting for people back home to see some of the places in my adopted city!

temple eaves

Like at Loi Krathong a few years ago, there was a moving pool where people could float a candle of their color of the day and say a prayer. I'm not sure if this was related to the Chinese New Year temple fair or not, but it's a beautiful tradition either way.

Buddha

Not so much to say today. Enjoy the pictures! We are coming up on final exams! Hopefully I'll get one more trip out of Bangkok to the Thai countryside before I come back to the US.