iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Kafka @kafkaesque2024.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

How many of you have a Buddhist monastery up the st from your local vet & fried chicken place? America's 4th largest 🏙️ is a 🔵🟣paradox: Pioneering skyscrapers, Michelin food scene, a terrifying entrail of 40-50 hwys, vomitous strip malls, vast nature reserves, & this. (See AltTxt) #Photography #ECK

America's 4th largest city --🔵🟣 Houston -- is its most schizophrenic, but also its most hopeful, inclusive, & famously diverse. This was a blue city in a red state that elected the first openly out lesbian mayor 20 yrs ago & was nothing like the rest of Texas in its cosmopolitan, diversified, highly international and European city mix.

As the nation's most ethnically diverse metropolitan area, Houston thrives as a dynamic global hub where no single demographic holds a majority and over 145 languages are spoken. Its cultural sophistication & wealth is matched by its urban sophistication, driven by a surging three-quarters-of-a-trillion-dollar economy, advanced tech innovations, being a global leader medically with its Houston Medical Center being the largest elite medical facility in the world, having a booming creative sector, and its role as a premier host on the international sports and entertainment stage.

Here, the photo is of a large, light grey stone statue of the Laughing Buddha (Maitreya) sitting cross-legged in a relaxed pose atop an ornate pedestal, holding prayer beads in his raised right hand. In the foreground, an intricate stone incense burner and two stylized stone lanterns flank the central monument on a wide, concrete courtyard. Behind the statue stands a grand Vietnamese Buddhist temple building, showcasing distinctive traditional architecture with a multi-tiered, bright orange-red tiled roof and decorative columns.

This photo is part of what I think is an actual Vietnamese monastery in the NW Houston region, possibly Tu Viện Phước Đức, which serves as a peaceful community hub for spiritual practice and traditional celebrations. The entire scene is captured under a vibrant blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds, casting crisp shadows onto the pavement.

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Tom Owens @tomowens67.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

It's a temple, not a monastery. It's only a monastery is monks live, work and train there. It is lovely, though.

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Kafka @kafkaesque2024.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

I was told that there were Vietnamese residents monks there, just like the one in Sugar Land and the other one that has Buddhist nuns as well as monks.

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