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Saturday, December 29, 2012

Active participant traveller

"...completely in contact with the environment..."


Our next meandering on Mother's day, May 2009, ended up in Bronkhorspruit the little town which boasts the biggest Buddhist temple in South Africa. Named the Nan Hua Temple, it is part of the Fo Guang Shan Humanistic Buddhist order.

"An uploaded video someone took of the temple"


Our first bike, Kawasaki KLR 650 took us to many interesting places.  Entering into this place known for promoting enlightenment felt like you were placing yourself slap bang into a scene from a martial arts movie.


It's amazing to think this small farming town on the border of Gauteng and Mpumalanga Map view, houses the largest temple in Africa.


A visit to the temple is an interesting aesthetic treat. The large scale of the front gates, the buildings and the steps to the temple are impressive.


It was here in the huge auditorium that I felt like I could transport my imagination to a scene of a whole lot of martial artists practising their art form

.............................something like this: taken from website with picture of martial artists


Prior to entering the shrine we had to remove our shoes


Before heading back home, we stopped at Sizanani Village, a place embodying Catholic values for people with intellectual and physical disabilities.  I particularly love the Ndebele African art patterns and wanted to get a photo.  The mother and child statue depict the care that this place provides and the three crosses typify the religious stand point.

In the spirit above it makes sense to end this blog with two thoughts:
Zen Quotes by Lao Tzu
The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step
                                        and
         Judges 18:6
         The priest answered them, "Go in peace.  Your journey has the Lord's approval"
 

6 comments:

  1. Wow, what a great place to ride to.

    I love how you put the photo collages in your post. How do you do such a neat trick? They always look so cool.

    Oh and not only are we more immersed in our surrounding when on a bike, roadkill smells different too, ick blah.

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    1. Thanks for the compliments :-)
      I do my collages through google Picasa.
      I love doing collages as they have a way of putting together your picture stories!

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    2. Hmmm. I have Picasa albums through google, but I've never thought about using hem for collages. I may have to investigate when I have some extra time.

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    3. I love the program sometimes I also use other online editing programs like ribbet too for editing and adding all sorts of effects. I also have some mobile app's for photo editing as well.

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  2. So true - on a bike you are immersed in the journey. What interesting spots you visit - so different than here in NA. Thanks for sharing, keep it up!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks VStar for the compliments. We have an interesting country, I also use google as well as google earth to find places to visit.

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