PoIs: Interesting Stories and Background
Magpie31
Posts: 1,258 ✭✭✭✭✭
Sometimes I see beautiful postcards and wonder what the story behind them is. I thought it would be really lovely to have a thread where we could discuss things in our local communities. We might get to learn a little about each other's towns, countries and cultures!
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Oooph!!! @Magpie31 you on fire with these fantastic ideas!!!!!! Woah! Keep 'em comin!!
Il try to see if I can find anything at all interesting to say about Preston!! 😂😂😂
Most I can think of just yet are...erm... this is a pic of the 'Blessed Sacrament Church' cos....well, that's what it is!! And here is 'The Gammul Pub' erm.... yep- leave it with me- theres gotta b at least one cool back story!!? 😂
Europe is a place full of history. What's more, there are many places where history is preserved in a way that allows people to learn about it even years, decades or millenia later. One of those is industrial history, where several european countries have come together to:
And with that I present to you the
The route consists of thousands and thousands of sites of interesting history, several of which are in my home-city. And one of those I'd like to introduce to you:
Ehemalige Neumühle - former new-mill
(as you can see, the full history is only visible in Ingress, HPWU only has a truncated version of said desctiption)
Wow! Thank you for sharing that, @Lucoire! It is so interesting to learn about different places!
So, I want to share a bit of information about a few common types of PoI that you will find here in Thailand.
1. SHRINES
In Thailand, there are three common types of shrine that you will see; Buddhist shrines, Hindu shrines, and spirit houses. The first two pictures above are spirit houses. Thais believe that spirits inhabit the land, and bad luck / karma will befall people who oust the spirits from their land. So when they want to build a house or shopping mall, they will build a spirit house so that the spirits have a new house and don't haunt them. A lot of these shrines have been designated as PoIs, which is why you find such a high density of them in Bangkok, despite the lack of traces. People who receive real world gifts from me will notice that these shrines make up a large proportion of my gifts.
2. ROYAL INSIGNIA
I have been careful about the order of these photos, and also need to preface it by saying that I have placed royal insignia second due to prevalence, not importance. You see, the royal family is incredibly important to the people of Thailand. The late King Rama IX, His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, was known as the father of the nation, and was the world's longest reigning monarch. In fact, so important is the royal family here, that father's day is celebrated on his birthday - 5th December - and mother's day is on his wife's birthday in August. Very different to the rest of the world. It is actually illegal to say anything that could be construed as negative towards the royal family, and showing respect, such as bowing your head to the porttait and flag after a royal anthem is really important.
But back to the POI bit. Because the royal family is so important, you will find lots of portraits of the beloved family around Thailand, and these are often PoIs.
You might notice beautiful fabric draped in a couple of the photos above (which I "borrowed", as I have become a little nonchalent about these portraits and don't photograph them!). There are different colours, usually draped alongside white. In Thailand, all days of the week have a corresponding lucky colour. The King's flag is yellow, because he was born on a Monday (as was the late King Rama IX). Queen Suthida (the current quren consort) was born on a Saturday, so her colour is purple, the same as the King's sister, Princess Sirindhorn. On the photos, you will see that banners for Queen Suthida are yellow and purple - yellow to show she is the wife of the king, and purple for her. Queen Sirikit, the King's mother, has blue as her colour. That is Friday.
There are lots of royal symbols, insignia and badges. I have included a photograph of the golden swan on the royal barge, another symbol of royalty.
I will try and photograph a couple more types for you soon!