In just the past 4-5 days we have been seeing and going to ever more amazing, beautiful and crazy places, I can't keep up the blog. Today we went to visit Haw Par Villa, which would fall under the CRAZY category.
This 'villa' is a 'theme park' previously known as the Tiger Balm Gardens, built in 1937 by the two brothers whose fortune came from the medicinal Tiger Balm sold everywhere in Asia. They wanted to portray scenes of Chinese folklore, Confucian teachings, legends and history so as to benefit society.
It goes on and on with fabulous and grotesque dioramas and grottoes, culminating in the Ten Courts of Hell. This is the (very) graphic portrayal of the judgement upon dying that a soul must endure. Each of about 50 sins has its corresponding punishment all rendered in 3-D bloody plaster dioramas. Not for children or for the faint of heart.
I didn't photograph the Courts of Hell (it was dark in there) but here are some shots of some of the other parts of the park:
Crab woman.
One of a half-dozen huge apes.
Attacking tiger.
Pigsy being naughty. (We learned all about the character Pigsy.)
Mermaids being playful.
Three giant masks.
Dragons in the clouds.
No comments:
Post a Comment