"East Asia" in Munich's Westpark - Thailand
Friday, September 23, 2011 at 8:00
Herr J in Travel, Westpark

The Westpark in Munich has an area with an "East Asian Ensemble" with "national gardens" that are actually much more interesting and beautiful than the more famous Chinese Tower in the English Garden.

In the middle of a small pond is a Thai sala (open pavillion) that stands nine meters high -- water was added after the pavillion was built because it was constantly too crowded, so they made it inaccessible.

If you look closely in the above photo, you'll see one rock in the water being bathed in sunlight...
it has a lot of smaller, lighter stones on it as well, plus one guy who was keeping warm:

The Buddha statue in the pavillion's center was "blessed" by the abbot from the temple at Waalwikj (Netherlands).
Wikipedia Germany claims it was the first "free standing Buddhist shrine" in Europe...

It's really quite impressive, even though you can't venture close.

They have Thai cultural activities on occasion -- I'm looking them up and we'll try to attend.  Should be fun.

Article originally appeared on Schnitzelbahn - Food, Travel, and Adventures in Germany (http://www.schnitzelbahn.com/).
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