Temples and religious sites are often one of the top recommended sites in many travel areas. Often noted for their splendor and cultural significance, they appear on many itineraries when traveling. If you really want to get a true cultural experience when traveling, diving head first into experiencing another culture, I highly recommend going to at least one major religious site if there is one in the place you are visiting. It can make you feel more connected to a culture you thought was completely foreign, and it can also open your worldview to different beliefs and ways of life.
*Something extremely important to remember when visiting temples and religious sites abroad is to show the utmost respect and follow the rules they have set to visitors if visitors are allowed.*
Learning what is expected as a form of respect is especially important if you are not familiar with the religious practices connected with that site. If you do not share the same faith of the site you are visiting it is important to check if the site is open for tourists, and if so, is photography allowed.
This is why ManMo Temple in Hong Kong is one of the most popular temples to visit in the city. While many of the temples and religious sites of Hong Kong (which are mostly Buddhist and Taoist) are open to tourists, the ManMo Temple on Hollywood Road in Sheung Wan is one of the few that actually allow for photography and filming. They allow visitors to take up to three free incense for offerings to both gods.
I consider myself a pretty spiritual person. I have always been interested in learning about different religions and spiritual practices from around the world and how it affects culture. I was raised Byzantine Catholic, and until I went to Greece I had no idea how similar that was to the major religion of Greece, Greek Orthodox. I had gone to Greece on a school trip with my sister and they had a handful of churches for us to visit on the itinerary. The first day that we actually went inside one, almost instantly my sister and I look at each other in shock. The church we were standing in halfway around the world sent us right back home, just with the smell of the incense. It's a strength of human memory that a smell that you never even registered as significant could pop back up with such force of memory later in life. After that experience I felt so much more connected to the culture of Greece the rest of my time there, like it was a part of me and my past that I had discovered.
On the same vein of something seeming so foreign yet so familiar was visiting the Cave of the Apocalypse on the island of Patmos in Greece. This was a cave where supposedly the visions for the Book of Revelations in the Bible were had, that now served as a very small church. We were not allowed to take photos inside but the room had similar iconography as other Greek Orthodox (and Byzantine Catholic) churches and held what felt like about 10 people. Our tour was allowed to walk through as a service was being held and I paused for a moment because I noticed that even though I could not understand the words they were singing, the melody was the exact same as a song I heard in church for years growing up.
While exploring religious sites in Greece felt like connecting with the my own culture, exploring these sites in Hong Kong was getting a view into the unknown. One of my favorite experiences of Hong Kong itself, not just the religious sites I visited was going to Tian Tan Buddha, also known as the Big Buddha. While this was an obviously large tourist attraction (we passed a Subway at the top of the mountain), I did notice a people praying at the top of the 268 steps leading to the statue. The Big Buddha, along with the Po Lin Monastery and the Wisdom Path are a wonderful and peaceful way to experience this major site for Buddhism in Hong Kong, and the world in general. Always make sure to read up before you visit places and remember that at their heart these locations are religious sites first, tourist attractions second.
List of religious places to visit in Hong Kong:
Hollywood Road ManMo Temple
Tian Tan Buddha and surrounding area on Lantau Island
Chun Lian Gardens and Nunnery
10,000 Buddhas Monastery
List of religious places to visit in Greece:
Monastery of Saint John the Theologian
Cave of the Apocalypse
Little Metropolis
A poem I wrote about memory connected to a vase I bought in Beijing and all the temples I visited:
Empty Vase
An empty vase on the table,
black brush strokes up the side billow
like smoke from the incense around
the altars in temples I saw.
It climbs up the white ceramic;
an empty vase on the table.
The smoke filling up my lungs with heat.
Warmth circles me like swaddled cloth.
I'm so far yet so close to home,
lighting incense for the god Man
an empty vase on the table;
I blink and I'm back home again.
So I know how to time travel
and go back and forth through the world:
a touch, a smell, a bit of smoke,
an empty vase on the table.
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