Buddhist Temples and Other Adventures

I just took my picture with a Tibetan lama!  A few of us went to explore the Tibetan district of Chengdu.  After wandering around for almost an hour trying to find a restaurant recommended to us, we finally found it on a random side street. The food was delicious and a nice contrast to the tofu and green veggies which are starting to get a bit repetitive. We had Tibetan food consisting of momos, potatoes, breaded vegetables, and lots and lots of warm milk tea. We accidentally ordered two jugs of milk tea, and were laughing about what everyone must think about us glutenous Americans. (I may or may not be on a sugar high right now.)

So back to the lama. We were sitting down at this restaurant and we realized that the man at the table over from us was accompanied by two other spiritual leaders, was sitting at the head of table, and was being treated very formally by all in his company. My friend recognized him as a lama and he kept smiling at us: he is one of those people who just makes you happy by looking at them and sensing their happiness. (He was a really adorable lama.) At the end of our meal, someone came up and said that he wanted a picture with us.   

We're basically the most popular people around to take pictures with.  I've decided to start a new Tumblr: pictures of people discreetly or not-so-discreetly taking pictures of me.

This past weekend, we visited the world's largest Buddha at Leshan.  The ear of the Buddha is seven meters tall!   Here's the view from the top of the mountain.

 After getting a look at the Buddha from the top, there was a two hour long line to walk down to the base of the Buddha.  I experienced first-hand that many Chinese people do not respect lines. The entire way people were trying to cut in front of me, and didn't show any shame about it. One woman waited until I moved a tiny bit aside (after elbowing me for a very long time) and then quickly cut through all of us.  I found it pretty ironic that people were being so pushy, given that we were in line to see a Buddhist monument.  (Be nice to all sentient beings?)  We also saw this lovely sign about what not to do in line.   I hope that I didn't "parabolic," because I have no idea what that means.

We also “climbed” Emei mountain, except that by climb I actually mean take busses and ski lifts most of the way up. At the top was a beautiful statue/temple pictured below.  It wasn't at all like trekking an American mountain. For one thing, there were so many other people, restaurants, high quality hotels, and food/jewelry stands along the way that it wasn't exactly natural or peaceful.  (Though I'm not complaining about the good food and hotel.)   It was certainly a fascinating look into Chinese tourism; it's so, well, touristy!    

More later!  I have to go learn the characters for twenty new Chinese words.