King Galon Gold Leaf Workshop

King Galon Gold Leaf Workshop in 36th Street is one of several gold leaf workshops where the manufacture of the wafer thin roughly 1.5 inch squares of gold leaf is carried out. Essentially it is as follows – take a 2oz button of gold and run it through a roll-press until it becomes a ribbon about 3/4 inch wide and 20 feet long. Chop it up into 800 equal pieces. Take 200 pieces, each piece separated by paper, put into a bundle and pound it with a hammed till it is flatter. Then, cut the now bigger 200 pieces into smaller pieces and repeat the procuedure several more times. It takes three men with large hammers around 6 hours to hammer the gold into small thin leaves. At the end of the day the men have turned the single gold button into around 2900 gold leaves.

Mahamuni Pagoda

The Mahamuni Buddha Temple is a Buddhist temple and major pilgrimage site, located southwest of Mandalay, Myanmar. The Mahamuni Buddha image is deified in this temple, and originally came from Arakan.