{"id":873,"date":"2010-03-01T06:49:19","date_gmt":"2010-03-01T12:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/2010\/03\/01\/sam-poh-tong\/"},"modified":"2010-03-01T06:49:19","modified_gmt":"2010-03-01T12:49:19","slug":"sam-poh-tong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/?p=873","title":{"rendered":"Sam Poh Tong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/smpohtong.jpg\" alt=\"smpohtong.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/spt1.jpg\" alt=\"spt1.jpg\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/spt2.jpg\" alt=\"spt2.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/spt3.jpg\" alt=\"spt3.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/spt4.jpg\" alt=\"spt4.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/spt5.jpg\" alt=\"spt5.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Looks nice, right?\u00a0 Well, it isn&#8217;t.\u00a0 The idea of putting a temple in a steep valley that you can only access via a cave is a nice one, and the fact that the religion of the temple is so inclusive and incoherent is nice too.\u00a0 But&#8230; OK, there&#8217;s this scene in the 1959 movie Journey to the Center of the Earth where the intrepid travelers are walking through a cave and then they meet a bunch of vicious prehistoric turtles, right?\u00a0 I always thought that scene was puzzling since the turtles were a) turtles and inherently not scary, and b) hissed like geese at the explorers.<\/p>\n<p>Well, it turns out that when that really happens to you it&#8217;s pretty damn scary.\u00a0 I was very glad that the turtles were behind a fence, and that I had bought a bag of croutons to distract them with.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/turtles1.jpg\" alt=\"turtles1.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/turtles2.jpg\" alt=\"turtles2.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I usually like turtles, but I did not like these turtles.\u00a0 The pond also stank of death, I guess because no one ever cleans it and the turtles don&#8217;t care.\u00a0 The turtles are here because they&#8217;re meant to be an auspicious omen.\u00a0 Turtles live forever, and so visiting them represents and\/or confers a long life on the viewer.\u00a0 To me, though, the combined effect was more like &#8220;Your life will wink out in an instant while these hideous beasts endure, indifferent to your fate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On the way out I checked out the fish pond.\u00a0 Instead of containing Koi, though, it had big scary arowana and a couple of these guys, who also (to me) immediately represented death since they&#8217;re eyeless and anatomically upside-down such that they look and act like reanimated corpses.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/corpsefish1.jpg\" alt=\"corpsefish1.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Also, among the interior photos I took there were these gems.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/sptdrawings1.jpg\" alt=\"sptdrawings1.jpg\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/sptdrawings2.jpg\" alt=\"sptdrawings2.jpg\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/sptdrawings3.jpg\" alt=\"sptdrawings3.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Looks nice, right?\u00a0 Well, it isn&#8217;t.\u00a0 The idea of putting a temple in a steep valley that you can only access via a cave is a nice one, and the fact that the religion of the temple is so inclusive &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/?p=873\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-critters","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}