Monastery of Deep Compassion and Culture Shock

Today Per and I went to a monastary close to the city's edge. It is the most important Buddhist temple in Tianjin (according to Lonely Planet).
There is a central statue of Sakyamuni, or Buddha. I think this is the Buddha, but we aren't 100% sure because of course there are no signs in English, and I'm not well versed in the differences in Buddhas and other Buddhist figures.

Buddha is surrounded by 18 Buddhist monks (according to Lonely Planet). There is also a large hall with 3 golden statues of Guanyin (don't really know who that is either), and the eyes follow you around the hall as you move (says Lonely Planet, I didn't really feel like it was acceptable to try to figure out if this was true while people were praying). You can't really see in this picture below, but it has a backwards swastika on its chest.This is the big hall with the three golden statues, all the buildings looked similar to this but smaller versions:

Another golden statue:

People were praying and burning incense. It was a really nice sight.

Outside the monastery, there are three small corridors where you can buy different things, like incesnse and mini buddhas and gifts for Buddha. It was really interesting.

I was also asked to take my first "white tourist" photo. As we were walking across the plaza area, I noticed this girl taking a picture of Per and I. As we got closer, she came up, and in Chinese, asked if I would take a picture with her and her boyfriend. Per took it, and then he swtiched with the bf and Per and I took a picture with the girl. Hehe. Makes you feel silly! And of course she did the sterotypical peace sign pose. I wish I had a picture too!! Next time I will take one too, and I can start a collection.

Per and I were not the best tourists today, and we left the camera memory in the computer as well as forgot to charge the camera. So we only got pictures from the temple. After that we went to the Ancient Culture street. Here you can buy all kinds of "traditional" Chinese things. We will go back when Per's parents arrive to take some pictures and visit the temple they have there.

Around Ancient Culture street I got hit by culture shock. I've been fine here the first week, but today it got overwhelming. There were so many people everywhere. Everyone was staring at us everywhere and it just got to be a little too much. I guess since it was a Sunday everyone was out, all 12 million inhabitants of Tianjin, and I think they were all following me around everywhere! I also wanted to buy this little ceramic buddha type character...and it was in one of the toursity shops so of course you have to haggle. And, I'm bad at it. Especially if I don't know how much a thing like that is even really worth! I just want a price tag that I know is near market value (like the Gucci purse i saw today for $2500 hehe). Then lunch was aggrevating because we didn't know what to eat and we were hungry and grumpy, so we just ate McDonalds because it was easy. Wah, poor me huh?

We had dinner at a sushi restaurant, that I liked but Per wasn't too crazy about. After dinner we went to this Chinese candy store and bought some random stuff to try! Fun...but weird :)

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day with less crowds and less culture shock! :)