Blondes, Buses, and Buddhas

The three B's (blondes, buses, and Buddhas) are not to be confused with the three forbidden T's (the aforementioned Tibet, Taiwan, and Tiananmen Square), but they perfectly sum up my day yesterday, as I will explain.  But Bs and T's are not the only thing that come in threes.  We also had triplets of trouble, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

I overslept in the morning because I didn't realize that my phone was still in a US time zone (when you're exactly 12 hours apart, it's easy to forget to check AM vs PM.  As a result, I missed meeting up with my running buddies, and missed out on morning tai chi in the park across from our hotel.  Major bummer, but I'm sure that I will have other chances.

Breakfast was another adventure, this time exploring congee: a sort of rice porridge that is usually savory rather than sweet.  It comes plain with a variety of add-ons alongside, including fermented tofu (very strong), pickled vegetables, and other toppings that I'd didn't recognize.

It definitely wasn't my favorite.  The congee was bland and the toppings weren't really that tasty in my opinion.  The fermented tofu was overwhelming in contrast with the rather bland pickled vegetables.  It was worth trying but only because I had other things to rinse the taste out of my mouth and fill me to a happy fullness.

We left Shanghai (temporarily) behind and drove to Hangzhou.  Hangzhou is famous for its beauty, I particular along the oft-painted and oft-copied West Lake.  The city is located on the Yangtze River Delta and is one (and has been for 1,000 years) one of the wealthiest parts of China.  Our first order of business was diving straight into the beauty and calm provided by this haven by visiting the Lingyin Temple.  First built in 326 AD, but clearly renovated since, the temple is really a series of temples that grow larger and large as you trek up the mountain.  Let me set the scene: you enter through one of the elaborate gates.  Everywhere you look are packed dirt paths lined by irregular boulders with tops smoothed by centuries of travelers resting upon them.  Across a small stream, lush green tress rocked shad and cliffs rise, revealing carved Buddhas every few steps. Caves appear and people disappear as they explore the mountains' depths.  It's incredibly peaceful.  As the stream wends its way through these mountains, taming their edges into smooth curves, gaggles of women with parasols meander alongside.  Art students apply painstaking layers of gray and black to capture the shading of the trees, capturing tranquility in brush strokes.  Packs of teenage boys lean against trees, people-watching instead of absorbing their surroundings.  I could have spent all day there.

While I loved the paths, I had to visit the famous attraction: the Buddhist temples.  Apparently this is one of the main centers of Buddhism in China, although that's unconfirmed hearsay.  Still, the places was clearly built by a community with incredibly strong faith, judging by the amount of work that went into it and the dedicate worshippers we observed.

Prayer instructions

At the base of the mountain is the main Daxiong Baodian (Great Hall), which contains a gigantic Buddha statue.  It forms one wall of a square of elaborate yellow buildings.  Across the square is a series of statues that apparently represent the four winds of Buddha but without context provided by a tour guide just looked rather angry.  The buildings continued up the hill, each different and often jarring out of context.

When you reach the top of the mountain, just keep climbing. -Buddha

In one of the earlier temples was a back wall so steep and unexpected that you might overlook it if others hasn't stopped and turned.  Its intricacy reminded me of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona - you didn't know where to look.  Golden peaceful Buddhas contrasted with fearsome green monsters, faces twisted in hate and anger. Behind me, people debated whether this represented heaven or hell.  I really couldn't say.

The park was quite busy, which I was told was due to upcoming college entrance exams.  If I was being ranked against every other college-aged student in China, I would need people's prayers, too.

So we've covered buses and Buddhas, but what about blonde? Well, I've been getting more and more attention for my blondeness each day.  Its pretty much a constant photoshoot here.  I got slightly mobbed in the park but people have mostly been respectful.

They had us meet up at KFC, the only truly distinctive landmark to a non-Chinese speaker.  I wasn't hungry, but ordered something small to tide me over to dinner. The food was terrible but the milk tea was fairly yummy.  I hate ordering American food (particularly fast food) outside of the US (or often in it).  Lesson: don't wonder fried food in a country where the amount of URL use is proportional to the amount of respect the person has for you.  I discovered the vegetarians has found a place around the corner selling glutinous rice with red bean paste, wrapped and steamed in leaves.  It was so incredibly delicious.  As I savored each bite, the moment got even better - monks walked by and I got to high-fine them.  Have you high-fived a monk today?

The afternoon was spent doing our second university music exchange.  The university buildings were compared to Starfleet Academy and the Library of Alexandria, to give you a sense of the range and scale of the architecture.  People were dropping like flies due to jet lag, exhaustion, respiratory issues (from smog and incense), sun poisoning and dehydration, and allergies.  The university students that we worked with were quite nice but fewer of them spoke English than at the previous university, which complicated our interactions.

And now let's get back to the trouble.  I already mentioned the exhaustion and the language barrier (which led to confusions not worth discussing here), but I said these things come in threes.  The third and final issue was that two purses went missing from our (supposedly locked but demonstrably otherwise) dressing room.  Wallets, passports, everything gone.  This delayed our return to the hotel and put even more stress on the group.  I feel lucky to have emerged unscathed so far by this bad luck.  Perhaps we need to fix the feng shui of our bus or concert venues or something.

Spotted: wonderfully horribly translated signs.  This one was my favorite (below). Note the symbols to the left that clarify what they're trying to say.