Relax, Don't Do It

  Chengdu, Sichuan, China
May 27, 2009

We were up late and showered. It was after 9:30 when we went downstairs for breakfast. I had some bran buds with warm soy milk and peanut butter, some yellow and red watermelon, I also tried two buns that had no filling, I like the bun with the pork filling, the zucchini was spicy. I also had some black tea. Bill had juice, watermelon, banana bread and a croissant.
 
Bill went to use the internet to see what sites we should check out today. Then I went on to do some blogging while Bill had to go use the toilet again. Poor guy!
 
We walked for an hour (did not take the most direct route, but were thrilled to find the place) to Manjushri (Wenshu - god of wisdom) Monastery. It is cooler out today and overcast, so the walk was pleasant. I was even able to order a large pork bun (with the help of the book) for 1.5 yuan.
 
A Monastery was originally built at this location in 605-617 during the Sui Dynasty and was called Xin Xiang. It was destroyed in the later part of the Ming Dynasty and was rebuilt in 1697 during the Qing Dynasty by a monk, Ci Zhuo . It is one of the four major Zen Buddhist temples. There is an academy to train monks, a library and a charitable institution in addition to the towers and pagodas. There is also a vegetarian restaurant and tea house on site to fund the monastery.
 
The first thing we saw when we walked in was a large gold smiling Buddha. That is a nice way to be greeted! He was flanked by other Buddhas or Bodhisattvas.
 
In the courtyards there are many large bronze incense burners. On either side of the first courtyard there is a drum room (large wooden drum) and a bell room (large bronze bell with Chinese writing on it).
 
At the monastery it is said to have rare curiosa cimelia, scriptures and calligraphic works housed here. The most famous is said to be the skull sarira of Tripitaka Master Xuan Zhang. I will have to take their word for it because I am not sure what some of that means and I don't think I saw any of it.
 
We went into the Hall of the Three Saints. They were copper sculptures riding elephants and lions. The Dharma Preaching Hall (for teaching) was built in 1697 and rebuilt in 1807. It has gauze and clay moulded statues of the Medicine Buddha on a lotus surrounded by 12 Yakas (I have also seen them called Titans). There was a beautiful bas relief behind the sculptures too. This temple is very beautiful. Like most it is black with some red and gold writing.
 
The Tripitaka Pavilion was built in 1697 and rebuilt in 1824. It is used for ceremonies and houses scriptures on the second floor. The Buddha is jade and is from Burma aka Myanmar. It was stated here that a Lion represents Buddhist Wisdom and the relief here depicts that Buddhist Wisdom can free you from detriments (the beast).
 
It has started to mist out, so I put my coat on while we walked around the gardens and the Free Life Pond. It was very peaceful except for the horking and spitting of the monks. Sigh! The pond had some ducks and two large birds that were grey, white and dark blue. They had a long white feather sticking out from the back of their heads. The catfish coming up to the surface of the pond was freaking Bill out. We could not believe how many fish and turtles were in the pond. There were hundreds of turtles and the pond was not that large.
 
Around the back of the garden there was a large, beautiful 3 storey library. Along the other side there was the Vegetarian Restaurant. I ordered meatballs with bamboo, lettuce and ginger in oyster sauce. Bill ordered Flavour, steamed corn cake (he is hoping for corn bread) with orange juice. I just drank the tea. We could have ordered eel, bear's paw, tripe, intestines, shark fin, tea smoked duck, chicken paws and turtle and chinese herb soup. I am not sure how this is a vegetarian restaurant. When we received our meals I think that my four large meatballs may have been made with tofu and mushrooms. I really liked it, Bill does not like the seasonings. He did not like his order either which is like corn fritters with cheese (that was his worst case scenario).
 
After lunch we walked by the 1000 Buddha Peace Pagoda. It was a tall tower covered with many small gold Buddhas. It was surrounded by statues of 2 elephants, 2 lions, 2 turtles and 2 pavilions. The temple behind it had 2 jade Buddhas, one large and one smaller one. They were really quite nice. They were surrounded by lots of tables and chairs.
 
We left the temple and walked through the old style buildings. It was a nice walking area with lots of shops and restaurants!

We walked back to the hotel and took a quicker, more direct route. We bought some Gatorade at a grocery store near the hotel. I hope this will make Bill feel better.
 
I ran to the toilet, but do not have Bill's problems yet. Bill used the toilet and his situation has not improved...
 
I left Bill to relax in the room and went down to use the internet. Both of the good computers were being used. I tried the one that frustrated me last night and it is not working again today. The engineer was called by a manager, but the hotmail still did not work after he "fixed" it. I tried to get them to hang around while I tried hotmail, but they took off. Techies are the same everywhere you go! I let the girls at the front desk know that I was trying to use hotmail and wrote it down for them. I had to call Bill to come down to get me, as you can not operate the elevator without a key and I left mine in the room. When Bill came down to get me someone left one of the good computers, so I went up to the room, retrieved my key and came back. I spent a couple of hours catching up on the blogs and emails. I tried to find a Body Shop store in China, the closest one is Hong Kong and in Thailand. I hope my hemp cream lasts a bit longer!
 
I went up to the room. HBO is working and Copperhead is ending again. That is the movie that Bill watched on our first day here. It is so cliche and so bad! Bill is still not feeling well and I have finished my letters for Nigel. I headed to the post office by myself, we can see that it is just a couple of blocks from here at the end of our street.
 
It turns out that it is not at the end of our street, it must be one more block over. I tried to access it from the alley, but could not. I started walking one way, but think I am going to be going way out of the way (the intersections are sometimes spaced really far apart here, not normal city block lengths). So, I turned around and headed the other way, which did turn out to be the quickest route. I was troubled when I arrived though, the signs said "China Post Bank". One part looked like bank tellers, so I thought the other part must be the postal area. The tellers were not serving other people, but I could not make eye contact with any of them, so a man (not sure if he worked there or not) walked up and told me that I had to go "that way" and take the second left. At first I thought he meant inside the building, but he showed me I had to go outside and around the building. Thankfully! It was the same building but the entrance was off another street.
 
I was able to get served right away, they even had seats for you, and it was just 7.8 yuan ($1+) to mail the letter. I was able to collect a new note too that is worth around 3 cents.
 
Near the post office was a trendy looking area, so I crossed the street. I saw a bakery and was going to get a croissant for Bill. They did not have any though. There were lots of nice looking men's stores though. I walked around the block and down the street with street vendors and cell phone stores. There are people selling something and all they have is a sign. We can not figure out what they are trying to sell... I found a guy selling something like gyros. I ordered one for 4 yuan (less than $1). He mixed the sliced meat with shredded lettuce. I declined extra chilli, good thing because it already had some. It was served in a small steamed pita bread that was sliced open. It was really good. I like the spice, although it was pretty salty. It was good and not dry, I did not need tatziki.
 
I went to the room and Bill was still vegging. I read my book for a while and around 7:30 we decided to head out. I just wanted to go to Starbucks and maybe grab a snack. I was still full from my gyros. Bill decided he had a craving for Pizza Hut again (not satisfied since Guilin). So, we walked out of our way a couple of blocks to Pizza Hut, went upstairs, sat down and looked at the menu. Bill was freaked out by the tuna pizza, surf and turf pizza with shrimp and steak, the shrimp and sausage stuffed crust, so we left. UGH! We walked back to McDonald's and he had a burger with fries and a coke for 20.50 yuan (around $4). I read that the burger has 260 kcal with 9 grams of fat and the fries had 420 kcal and 20 grams of fat. I had two fries and 2 sips of coke. That was enough for me.

We walked back to Starbucks. For some reason you can only get a black tea latte and a green tea latte. I am guessing that China will only allow those (maybe only thing grown in China?). So, I had a black tea latte with low fat milk and some sweetener. My latte was more than Bill's meal at McDonald's (26 yuan). Why does Starbucks think they can charge the same in SE Asia as they can in North America? Even McDonald's and Pizza Hut had more reasonable pricing (still expensive though). I guess that is why McDonald's and Pizza Hut are busy and Starbucks is not.
 
We tried to buy some cereal at the grocery store for breakfast tomorrow, but they only have oatmeal. It looks like they serve an egg over oatmeal here. Yuck!

Bill and I used the internet for a while since we may not have access to the internet while we are in Lhasa for the next 3 days.