Guess what, there is a Part 2 of the Greyfiars Kirk. I tend to go overboard when visiting places of the dead. I find them romantically beautiful somehow. I plan to visit the Glasgow Necropolis next! I think my fascination started on my very first trip to Europe when I went down to the Catacombs of Paris. Since then, I've visited many places of the dead, from Churches decorated with bones in Italy, to the beautiful graveyards of Paris Pere Lachaise Cemetery, to Koyasan's Okunoin Cemetery and Mausoleum of Kyoto near Kiyumizudera....
Now I can add the Greyfiars Kirk into my list as well :)
If anything, it' a beautiful walk inside. There are more tombstone here than another kirk we visited called the St Cutbert Kirk the next day. Although I must say, St Cuthbert Kirk has it's own charm as well. I also like it that you could just wander into graveyards here as part of your way to another location. It was just a path you could cut through to get some peace and quiet. Almost like a park!
I also like the decorative nature of western graveyard and their tomb stones. Granted the urns in a Chinese temple can also be interesting. I used to spend a lot of time looking at urns at my grandma's temple during prayer season too. But I kinda like the western ones better, mainly because I grew up with wester literature more than eastern ones. I mostly felt like a mixed bag of culture, yellow on the outside, but pretty white inside in terms of literature, philosophy and religion. As I aged, my inside has slowly changed to more eastern as I travel more to China and Japan.....
How would you not like decorative like a dancing skeleton on your tombstone? I know I would love having that! Too bad mine would be more of a cremation and throw into the sea type of ending. lol. I guess as a Buddhist I will leave nothing behind. Perhaps these pages will survive.... For how long, I don't know.
Moss covered tombstone was another lovely sight for me. I also love moss covered temples (maybe for the dead) in Thailand and Cambodia. I think travel feeds my love for all these beautiful places on earth where I can't really experience in person from books or other media. You've got to be there in real life to experience the joy of seeing these in person!
There are also stone statues on some of the graves and mausoleum. I guess only the rich people have mausoleum as it must cost more to build it? I think I read that there are also caged cemetery, maybe for witches and evil people where you don't want them crawling back up no matter what. I read there was a witch that was buried in sea with a stone grave.... Scotland, you are so fascinating to me!
Signing off with a skull photo here :)
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