A Taiwan Trip – Heaven on Earth

Well where to start… two weeks and three days in Taiwan, all expenses paid. What a trip and what an experience!! April 30 was our flight to Taipei, Taiwan and the departure time was 5AM. We used PAL since we had a large discount from our air fare, was sooo sleepy on the flight to Taiwan but I didn’t sleep since I was very excited.

The hospitality we were given in Taiwan was amazing! No words can describe the love and care the people there gave us, from the arrival in Taipei airport to the accommodation in Pu Men Temple was overwhelming! Everything was given to us on a silver platter, so to speak. We were treated like celebrities!

We had four shows in Taipei, in Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall. What an experience it was! Where do I start? First, the make-up artist… what can I say, they were real professionals!! You couldn’t find that kind of fast service in the Philippines! From the way they start applying the makeup to finishing touches were very impressive! Oh, and they don’t just apply makeup then forget about you. They stayed at the sides of the stages to retouch the makeup when you exit the stage! Now that’s professionalism!

We were treated to some sight seeing tour around Taipei afterwards. One small problem… time management. We were always late in gathering and assembling, hahahah, other than that, the tour was a total blast!! After two days of rest, we had to travel to Kaohsiung for another show there. We passed by a temple built in the center of Taiwan, I think it was called Fo Guang Shan Lucky Mountain Temple.

A little history, it was build at the center of Taiwan, a city called Taichong, so that travelers, going from south to north, can stop by the temple for an overnight stay. The temple is really large and the accommodation were not bad. Of course its not a hotel, but it was good enough for an overnight stay. On the way to Kaohsiung, we were treated to a theme park, thank god its was cloudy or we would have sweat all over.

In Kaohsiung, we stayed in Fo Guang Shan. It’s like Vatican City in Christianity. Fo Guang Shan spanned three mountains and has its own hotel, a university for the monks, cafeteria, TV station, temples, and more! We stayed in the Bamboo Inn, named after the bamboos, of course. I wont talk about the sites in Fo Guang Shan, it will take up a lot of space in the blog =p

The show was in the city proper of Kaohsiung. It took a 45min bus ride to the hall. First thing observed was that the hall was not as big as Taipei, but in the end everything went as planned.
Venerable Master Hsing Yun watched the second play on Saturday and everyone was at their best! How many times in a life time can someone meet a person who is an equivalent of the Pope! The energy in the air was so strong, when he speaks everyone was dead silent! We also had another meeting with Venerable Master Hsing Yun the following day in a conference room. Oh the joy of it all! We were given autographed pictures of him!! Well a 1-on-1 picture would have been better but this was close enough and I’m very happy. Plus a bonus, he hinted that he may find ways to bring us to Beijing! And not just any concert hall…. THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR PERFORMING ARTS!

Kaohsiung play came and went. Boy do time fly sooo quickly! Our last show was on Wednesday, in Fo Guang Shan. A special show free of charge for the monks in the monastery and other people who couldn’t go out to watch the play. We gave our best and the place was fully packed! We had the show under the evening sky and with some great divine intervention, it never rained!

Impermanence, nothing is permanent at all. This we learned from Venerable Master Hsing Yun. We soon had to leave the beautiful Fo Guang Shan and go back to Taipei for our trip back to Cebu. *SIGH ='(* We missed all the monks that gave all their love and care when we were in Fo Guang Shan. People cried when we left as we left for Taipei. Because of them, our stay was very memorable and heart warming… memories that will last a life time!