Hawai'i Topher: Valley of the Temples

Couple shout-outs before I get to my blog:

First: Happy Father's Day to my Father. Best Daddio ever! Wishing all the Dads out there a Happy Father's Day.

Second: Congrats to my sister and brother-in-law. My new little nephew Max has entered the world and he is adorable! I was sad. It's the first big milestone that I've missed, but I look forward to meeting him soon. Luckily, technology in this instance is great since I've already FaceTime'ed a couple of times with the little guy.

Third: Check out Dave's Blog. He's a few weeks behind, but he recently put up his Portlock Cave post and I'm in it (loosing my slippers). The past couple weeks I've mostly SUP'ed (stand-up paddleboard) and played beach volleyball. I haven't taken my camera along (it would get wet paddleboarding and likely stolen during volleyball). During the week I have been working like crazy, so nothing exciting happens then. I work hard to play hard I guess.

Today I went to the Valley of the Temples and I'm excited to have something to tell you all about. The Valley of the Temples is located between the coast on the Windward side (eastern shore) and the Ko'olau Mountain range, just outside of Kane'ohe. Simply, this site is a cemetery and memorial park. It gets is name due to several temples, worship spaces and memorial areas that are located in this valley. Today it was really busy (maybe due to Father's Day weekend?) so I tried to be respectful and didn't take pictures of all the temple areas since there were many families having small memorials.

The memorial park has temples and worship spaces for all of the common religions. The highlight, however, is Buddhist Byodo-In Temple (described later). It was a rainy and cloudy on the windward side which made for some neat pictures since the thick clouds obscured the mountain tops.

The sign and administrate offices for the Temple

T3i: SS 1/100, f/9.0, ISO: 200, FL: 18mm, CP lens

The Catholic "Temple"

T3i: SS 1/60, f/18, ISO: 200, FL: 29mm, CP lens

Dillingham (military) Reflection space

T3i: SS 1/35, f/8.0, ISO: 200, FL: 18mm, CP lens

T3i: SS 1/50, f/9.0, ISO: 200, FL: 18mm, CP lens

Some mortuary for a Japanese person I don't know anything about.

T3i: SS 1/30, f/8.0, ISO: 200, FL: 18mm, CP lens

Next are pictures of the Byodo-in Temple, which was built in the 1960's to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the first Japanese immigrants to Hawai'i. It is s smaller scale replica of the Byodo-In Temple in Uji, Japan. The O'ahu Byodo-In Temple is a non-practicing Buddhist temple that welcomes people of all faiths worship independently. The temple is often used for weddings If you are a fellow Lost-freak, like myself, then you'd recognize it at the site of Jin and Sun's marriage on the show, as well as the place where Sun's father lived!

The Bon-Sho (sacred bell) Gong.