Saturday - Wat Pho

After the Grand Palace we went to Wat Pho to see the Reclining Buddha. The statue of the reclining Buddha is 50 ft high and 143 ft long with his right arm supporting the head with tight curls on two box-pillows of blue, richly encrusted with glass mosaics. The 10 feet high and 15 feet long foot of Buddha displays are inlaid with mother-of-pearl. They are divided into 108 arranged panels, displaying the auspicious symbols by which Buddha can be identified like flowers, dancers, white elephants, tigers and altar accessories. Over the statue is a seven tiered umbrella representing the authority of Thailand. The temple is considered the first public university of Thailand, teaching students in the fields of religion, science and literature through murals and sculptures In 1962 a school for traditional medicine and massage was established

Saturday - The Grand Palace

 OK, so I finally have some time to update this blog.  Been quite busy the last few weeks.  So this is an update for Saturday, December 24.  

On Saturday, we started by headed to the Grand Palace which was filled with buildings that were built around 250 years ago by King Ramen I.  King Ramen I wanted to build a WAT that was more beautiful and amazing then the Angkor WAT in Cambodia (Pictures follow), but doing that would be to expensive. In stead King Ramen I built a model of the Angkor WAT inside the Grand Palace to pay tribute to its greatness and built the most beautiful and amazing WAT he could afford.

We went through the temple in about 3 hours but I will definitely need to go back.  I could spend days taking pictures of all the buildings and statues as they are absolutely amazing.  When we entered, some of the girls had to rent skirts/shirts as there is a dress code in the palace (picture follows).  While in the palace, the one thing I couldn't take pictures of was inside the Temple of the Emerald Buddha as pictures are not allowed (although I did manage to take somewhat of a video).  The is a Buddha statue in this building actually glows, and the King actually changes the dress it wears 3 times a year.


We only saw part of the Palace as a lot of it is closed off to the public.  There are painting on wall everywhere telling stories about the history of the Buddha.  I imagine I will have even more on this, as I will be returning here in the future.

The Entrance

The dress code.  basically had to be covering the shoulders (like a t-shirt, and it can't be tight), and the full legs had to be coverd (I just wore jeans, thankfully I wear baggy jeans as they also can't be tight)

Picture of the building we going to just inside the entrance

When we were going to go in a marching band was coming out.

Just inside the second entrance.  They were doing some repairs.

These statues were all around the main temple of the emerald Buddha

The Model of Angkor WAT in Cambodia

The Model of Angkor WAT in Cambodia

Paintings that were all over the wall telling stories about the Buddha

A statue by the entrance.  It has a ball in its mouth.

This is a ball inside the mouth of the statues, I guess this ball was actually carved inside the mouth.  The girls actually tried to get the ball out with no luck. LOL