Malacca Heritage: St Paul's Church

My first local holiday since 6 years ago.  This time to Malacca (Melaka) Historical City as well as one of the two UNESCO Heritage Site in Malaysia besides the city of Georgetown in Penang. This is my very first time in Malacca since I was born..hehe..I've always wanted to visit Malacca but there's no chance...Well here we are with my first blog post on Malacca's St Paul Church. The St Paul's Church was originally a small chapel built by a Portuguese Captain called Duarto Coelho in the year 1521 (about 10 years after the victory of Portugal against the Malacca Sultanate - 1511). The tower was added in the year 1590. When the Dutch took over Malacca, that's the year when this name St Paul's Church was used which lasted for about 112 years until the Christ Church was completed in the year 1753.

At the entrance of the Church

Interior sections of the Church

Different view perspectives

Old tombstones inside the ruins is the resting place for several Dutch and Portuguese nationals. The St Paul's Church ruins were gazetted as an old monument and historical site under the Antiquities Act No. 168/1976 on 12th May 1977.

Several Tombstones around..can anyone read Portuguese?

That's me as a proof I was there..

If you are interested in history, perhaps you would search for Frau van Riebeck or John van Riebeck. Well I did! :) Actually John van Riebeck is spelled as Jan van Riebeeck and he was the founder of Cape Town, South Africa. He's the first Commander of Cape Town and he's the one who ordered the Fort of Good Hope to be built at the Cape of Good Hope. I've seen this fort personally at the Cape of Good Hope (Click the link if you're interested to know more and to view more photos of my visit)

more tombstones inside the Church

This was what could be seen on some tombstones

Another excavated tombstone

and money's being thrown into the excavated tomb....

External wall..very old indeed and eroded by time and weather..

Another perspective viewing up.

Well, that's all for now..hope everyone will enjoy some history shots here.

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The Great Buddha (Daibutsu) of Kamakura

The Great Buddha statue in Kamakura is located at Kotoku-in Temple in the Ancient Kamakura City, Kanagawa Prefecture.The bronze statue probably dated at 1252 during the Kamakura period was preceded by a giant wooden Buddha which was completed in the year 1243. It has been destroyed several times by natural disasters such as floods, tsunami and earthquake but since the last washaway in the year 1498, it has withstood natural disaster until now except for some damages in the base during the Great Kanto Earthquake in the year 1923.

Below are some of the stats of the statue taken from Wikipedia:

• Weight; 93 tons
• Height; 13.35m
• Length of Face; 2.35m
• Length of Eye; 1.0m
• Length of Mouth; 0.82m
• Length of Ear; 1.90m
• Length from knee to knee; 9.10m
• Circumference of thumb; 0.85m

Below are the photos from the year 2007 and 2008 during my Nissan Workshop visit: The year dated 2007 are the photos from the Sony DSC H-1 while the photos dated 2008 are from Nikon D60.

So enjoy!

That's the Great Buddha Statue in the winter 2008..it was only 4pm and it has turned dark and rain started to drizzle but from here it looks like it's snowing..maybe sleek perhaps

With lighting at 'night'..

That's me as a proof I was there in the year 2007 winter.

and here we are, during the year 2008 winter, it was sunny in the afternoon lucky for me..

Different point of view of the Great Buddha Statue

A close-up shot of the Buddha

love the cloud effects all over and I was lucky that the skies were very blue at that time

Inside the Buddha's statue and the hollow that you see is the head of the Buddha itself..and you just pay a mere 5 yen to enter..

and that's me again as a proof that I was there in the year 2008 winter..

Well that's all for now for the first Kamakura Heritage Series..more to come soon..

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