none of us have seen before! The first temple was the Byodo In buddhist temple in the valley of temples. It was a (functional) replica of a 900 year old temple in japan built in
1968 to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the first japanese immigrants to Hawaii. We were excited to go there, but it turned out to be a bit of a tourist attraction so the
coolness factor dropped significantly. But check it out:
Here is a picture of Ben ringing the bell and "cleansing his mind of temptation" while bringing good luck through a donation which we will discuss shortly...
Our next stop was the LDS Temple in Laie. From what we hear, it was the first operating LDS temple out of Utah. It was built in 1919 out of marble, crushed lava, and coral! We also visited
the newly renovated visitors center. It was a lovely and beautiful place:
Now, we'll talk about the 'good luck' mentioned above...
On the drive home, we finally got to see sea turtles (something Ben has been wanting to see since WAY before we moved here). Looks like his good luck paid off because we saw a whole herd of them grazing on green seaweed. We wouldn't even have noticed them except for the huge
traffic jam and the flocks of people photographing something at the beach. We quickly illegaly parked and ran down to the beach to try and snap a few photos. The turtles were all grazing in the water, but we were fortunate enough to see one come out a little bit on land. They were BIG too,
much bigger than most of us expected.
Good Luck to all, and to all a good night (or is it merry christmas?),
Stacy, Ben, & Ashley
