Temple Running

I had a mad rush to see a few more temples before I left Singapore for Bangkok. I went to Chinatown to hunt down some ancient (or not) religious sites. First, I saw the Sri Mariamman temple. The Sri Mariamman temple is a large and ornate Hindu temple. I afraid to go into the last temple I saw, but I decided to be bold, take off my shoes, and hop on in. I was lucky to arrive when a service was going on. Hindu devotees were walking about, a religious leader was singing loudly and offerings were being made. It was a great experience that I may not have again for a long time. The temple itself was beautiful. The outside was covered in colorful and very three-dimensional carvings of Hindu gods (I’m assuming?). The inside walls were painted elaborately with wonderful bright colors. I wanted to look for some other nearby temples, but my efforts were not successful.

The front facade of Sri Mariamman Temple

The inside of Sri Mariamman Temple

The next day (Friday) I had a little bit of free time in between our program event (the NUS Science Center) and my homestay group’s dinner with Joe. I tried to find the Temple I had missed on Thursday. I came from a different direction and found what I was looking for easily! I saw a Chinese Methodist Church,

the Al-Abrar Mosque,

Photo Credit: Wikipedia (I couldn't really get a good picture from where I was)

and the Thian Hock Keng chinese temple.

The area was neat because it was a less touristy part of Chinatown, with businesses and restaurants as opposed to street stalls selling chopsticks and postcards. I could see clearly into the mosque; men were barefoot and lounging on the floor while the women waited outside. I would have loved to go in, but I didn’t know if it was appropriate so I decided to move on. Unfortunately the Thain Hock Ken temple was under renovation, so I could not see much of the outside, but the inside was intact and very interesting. I was the only person in there. Little cubicles with Chinese style shrines lined the walls and a interesting black object with smoke coming out of the top. Seeing that temple meant that I had officially checked off all ten things in my guidebook’s top ten list! So that was really exciting.