I just wanted to take a moment to thank the folks at Bloggers in Taiwan for making this travelogue the featured blog of the week. That was a pretty cool surprise.

The same day I went to the Museum of Taiwanese Literature, I went to the Taiwan (or Tainan) Confucius Temple (Chinese | English). (It is right down the street from the museum.) It was the first Confucius temple in Taiwan. The temple grounds are much larger than any temple I’ve been in to date, and there is at least one major difference between Confucian and Buddhist and/or Taoist temples. In Confucian temples there are no statues of Confucius (whereas in a Buddhist/Taoist temple, there might be images of Matsu or another god). This is because no one could come to agreement on what a statue of Confucius should look like, and instead of having many different looks for Confucius, Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty decided that only memorial tablets would be used in Confucian Temples. Also, Confucian temples were often (like the one I visited in Tainan) used as schools as well as places of worship.

I love me a good “you are here” sign.

This is the main entrance of the temple, but there are other entrances. I found at least two others. The grounds are really quite extensive and some of the trees looked to be quite old.

The temple has been around for a long, long time – around 343 years.

There were a great variety of relief sculptures along the walls of the main temple area…

as well as many paintings. Most of the images seemed to be of animals, rather than people.

As always, the attention to detail that goes into one of the temples here is astounding and awe inspiring.

Because the temple used to be associated with a school, students who want to do well on exams will come here and put a card detailing the exam they want to have good luck on.

An example of the memorial tablets. There were a couple of rooms devoted to these on the temple grounds.

Although they are sometimes called Foo Dogs, these statues that are fairly common in the temples here are actually of lions, not dogs. Who knew?

A couple of shots from the temple grounds. I have many, many more pictures from here. I was really quite beautiful.

One thing that is really quite cool about Taiwan is how the old and the new reside side-by-side.

Don’t feed the squirrels at the Confucius Temple. Apparently the squirrels know they aren’t going to get fed, because I didn’t see a single one.

Right across the street from the temple, there is an import grocery store. They carried a lot of American food. I bought some Jif peanut butter and a Mt. Dew! It was the first Mt. Dew I’d seen since I got here. Very exciting.

Before I went home, I wandered around the Confucius temple area, checking out Fujhong St. (and the alleyways off of it) and found a rabbit hopping around on a leash! Too cute.

Up next: The Gangshan Night Market and a bit of miscellany….