Chi Lin Buddhist Nunnery and Fish Pedicures

Today started off calmly with a trip to the Chi Lin Buddhist Nunnery which someone told me I should see because of it's beautiful surrounding gardens and the ornate statues of the Sakyamuni Buddha. You could not take any pictures of the statues but the gardens and lily ponds were as beautiful as people had said.

There is actually a restaurant behind that waterfall which I really wanted to try but we had just eaten so I just took some pics outside....

When we left the Nunnery we met up with our friends, Steph and Long-Long to try out a practice we had all been wanting to participate in. This ritual was brought over from Turkey and it's basically tubs of water housing thousands of fish that feed on your dead skin. It's like a pedicure of sorts and is supposed to leave your feet (or face or entire bodies as we found out some people do) silky smooth. I was a BIG talker and was one of the main voices really wanting to take part in this activity. So, we get there and get our feet all washed up and then take a pic right before the festivities began.

Oh, yeah, it looks innocent enough right before we put our feet in the tank

And then it was the craziest weirdest most horrifying feeling EVER....that's what the face is...pure candidness here folks

The fish just attach to your toes and ankles and feet and just start sucking at your skin. There really is no way to describe how freaky the feeling is.

The fish LOVED Devin's toes...mine were yanked out at this point because I could only handle it for short seconds before I chickened out and picked my feet up out of the water...Devin and Long-Long were the true troopers (seen below)

So, you get used to the crazy feeling and in the end our feet really were smooth and tingly. If we come back to the States with all our toes attached I will call it a success. So, the fish feeding frenzy was on top of the Peak so we walked out after the "pedicures" and it was a CLEAR day so I finally got some good pictures of the buildings. It's hard to believe this is where we live.