T.G.I.F.

Friday June 22nd...
Thank the Lord for Fridays and after a happy week filled with every emotion possible, we get to have a fun day!
We are going to the Chen Ancestral Hall, it is an old Emperor's Temple that was built in the 1800's.

 There are stone carvings in the walls and on the roof.  Each has it's own meaning. 

They repaint them every 5 years. The expression on every face is different.

This is a wood wall and is hand carved.

This is one of the doors to the temple.  The back doors with the red panels on them are closed in the wintertime to keep in the heat.  The shorter doors in front are for the summertime and function like a screen door to let the breeze in. 

This is where the emperor would have slept.  No matress and the blue and white porcelain boxes are the pillows.  They have small holes in them so that the breeze can flow through them as well.

Looks pretty uncomfortable to me,  I love my down pillow too much! 

This guy is ink painting with the back of his hand and pinky and they are incredible.

It is quite impressive to watch! This is a side shot of what he painted. 

This is not a painting or photo, it is actually tapestry.  There are probably a million threads in this picture frame.  I am amazed at the detail.

This guy is painting cherry blossoms on the inside of these tiny little bottles. 

This is an ink stone, when you add water to it makes ink for drawing calligraphy.

This is carved out of ivory, they are beautiful and have so much detail.  It crazy!

All in all this we had a great day enjoying some sight seeing.  When it was time to go it came a down pour!

I think it has rained everyday at least part of the day since we have been here and somehow still manage to leave our rain jackets back at the hotel??? So needless to say we got soaked!