SAM
POO KONG TEMPLE:
ARE WE IN REPUBLIC OF CHINA?????
Pheeew... writing a blogpost will always make me tire.. but for the sake of getting good score!!!! yup !! Back again with me and back again with Semarang City...After we travelled to a haunted place which was Lawing Sewu, let's move to the more religious ones? May I? So... in this third post of mine out of my 5 bucket lists for Indonesian Art and Culture subject, I recommend you guys to visit a place where you can feel like in China!! So, for those who doesn't have much money don't be sad !! because you can find China in Semarang!!! LOL (Wasn't intending to be sarcastic, it was all just kidding,just please don't take it seriously :(( ) And this one is called as Sam Poo Kong.
Basically Sam Poo Kong is a prayer house for Chinese which are
for Taoism, Buddhist, and Konguchu followers. The total building area
itself is 1.020 m and it is dominated
with the color
of red and it is
fulfilled with the smell of incense smoke or we can commonly familiar
with the term of “Dupa”. In this temple you will be served with a
large statue of Cheng Ho Admiral and it heights for 10,7 meters
square. Moreover it is weighs for 3,7 tons and this is becoming one
of the Semarang city's icons. Imagining China already??
HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND
 |
| The 10 meters statue of Cheng Ho Admiral |
Move into a more serious session, as
it is stated before, The temple foundations were first built by
Admiral Cheng Ho, elsewhere better known as Admiral Zheng He - a
Muslim explorer from China. He arrived in Java between the years of
1400 and 1416. He was firstly finding a small cave in a rocky
hillside, Cheng Ho used the site for prayer and later built a small
temple in its place. While in Java, Cheng Ho taught the residents of
the area how to farm and cultivate the land.
After
a period of time, Cheng Ho left Java, but many of his crew decided to
stay behind and settle in the area. They married with the locals, and
till now, Simongan is inhabited by descendants of China. In 1704, the
original temple and cave collapsed in a landslide. The local
community rebuilt it 20 years later in a different location, closer
to the city center and further from areas prone to decay by natural
elements. It functions both as a place of worship, and a shrine
honoring Cheng Ho for his services to the community.
HOW
TO GET THERE?
For those foreigners whose wishing to visit this beautifully coloured temple, Ahmad
Yani International Airport offers international routes to Jakarta and you can transfer your flight into a domestic flight heading to Semarang.For those locals, Domestic flights are also available from Jakarta,
Surabaya, Denpasar, Bandung, Balikpapan and Banjarmasin. For those wishing to enjoy beautiful scenery of java landscapes, you can take train service instead of the air transportation ones. For the price itself are ranging, it depends on which stations you are coming from.
Sam
Poo Kong Temple is located on Simongan Road, approximately 3
kilometers south west from Simpang Lima and about 20 minutes from the
city centre. The
temple is open to the public 24 hours a day at an entrance fee of
30,000 rupiah.
Below are the pictures taken by my friend in Sam Poo Kong, enjoy!
Sorry not sorry for the "instagrammable" pictures of me :D
RESOURCES :
http://www.indonesia.travel/en/destination/560/the-sam-poo-kong-temple-of-semarang
Jakarta
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