Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

Last Wednesday was Deepavali or Divali which meant we had a public holiday in Singapore (aka no work)!

I woke up to a cloudy day and had a quick chat with Niles, boy do I miss him.  Then the cloudy day quickly turned into a rainy day but that didn’t stop our group (Ethan, friend Tracey, Tracey's dad, and me) from heading to Chinatown to walk around.  We did the usual walk through all the different shops, managing to stay under the tarps overhead so we didn’t get completely soaked.  But to our surprise the rain still hadn’t let up yet.  Usually rain storms in Singapore will last for an hour or so then quit, but we’ve had a couple of these mostly rainy days which I guess means that it’s starting to turn to rainy season for us. 

          

 

While walking along, we stumbled upon a tall Chinese temple which Ethan confirmed was the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple.  Now according to my travel book, one of Buddha’s teeth is supposed to be located in the temple.  I figured there might be some odd shrine to an old tooth but it turns out the tooth is buried in the temple somewhere.  We entered and Tracey and I were immediately told we were not dressed appropriately.  Luckily they keep sarongs and scarves for people to use while they visit.  I was wearing a tank top and shorts so I tied the sarong around my waist to cover my legs and then draped a scarf over my shoulders.  Once we were dressed properly we were able to walk around. 

There was over 100 Buddha’s in the temple and it was just spectacular.  Inside there was lots of red and gold along with other bright colors too.  It was truly incredible to see how many small Buddha statues adorned the walls of the main room. 

As we left, we each lit a prayer incense and set it in a large urn with other prayers lit. 

While I never saw Buddha’s tooth, it was a peaceful experience on a rainy day nonetheless.