Visited various religious institutions
Yesterday, with family in town, we decided to visit two different local religious institutions which are open to the public. We started the day at BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Chino Hills, CA, which has a Hindu architecture museum in the basement:
I had never been before. I do recommend going! Its website is here. It takes about an hour to an hour and a half to visit, depending on how many photos you take and how long you spend in the gift shop/cafe. The museum is very small but dense and is well-put-together. The entire structure is built on anti-earthquake base isolation devices and the museum actually exposes two of these in the basement for you to look at.
After this, we visited the San Gabriel mission, which I'd never been to before despite being raised Catholic myself and having a vague interest in the history of LA.
The mission is of course a much more sober visit, and a much weirder one, since the museum attached to the mission does not really dig into the horrors of colonial slavery at all. In the past we've had to see that topic covered at other museums in the area.
We did get to see the brand new gamer saint merch in the gift shop, however:
What games did he play? Pokemon and Mario are the two I keep seeing referenced online. Truly: a gamer.
A wild day! Now I'm exhausted.