Temple with Michael and Ivy
Today I went to a temple with Ivy and Michael. It was about 45 minutes outside of Shijiazhuang. As we were driving to the temple, we passed this 1000 year old obelisk and I was shocked that both Ivy and Michael could read something that old without any problems. Stuff like that just doesn’t exist in America.
When we got to the temple, it didn’t look like anything from the street. Just a small little hole in the wall. We parked the car and avoided the hoards of people selling incense outside. When we went in, however, Ivy bought a TON of incense…like 200 sticks. I had no idea why until I noticed that people would burn around 60 sticks at each of the prayer stations around the temple.
One of the first things we saw was this 1100 year old tower. While I was taking pictures of it, some random college-age students came up and wanted to take pictures with me. It was very strange to have someone I didn’t know want to take a picture with me for no apparent reason other than the fact that I am not Chinese. Here is a random Chinese girl taking a picture with me:
After the first two students took a picture with me, a bunch of other kids came up and wanted pictures with me as well. After 5 or 6 sets of photos, Ivy finally dragged me away. Here is a picture of Ivy and I in front of the tower:
Michael, Ivy and I then walked around the tower 3 times for good luck and made a wish.
The sheer size of the temple was overwhelming. It was HUGE! There were more buildings than I could count, and every now and then we would stumble across another prayer station. Ivy would of course lite some incense at each station.
Most of the buildings were decorated with pictures of various monks or ceremonies. I found it very odd how there could be such simple religious people in the photographs along with photographers using fancy high-tech digital cameras.
This is a poster that I found to be quite funny. It’s a kids guide to proper prayer posture:
This kid kept wandering around the incense burning station. I thought he was very cute:
As we left, I grabbed this picture of the tower:
After we left the temple, Ivy grabbed a hot sweet potato from one of the street vendors. Those things are GREAT! I love eating them.
I met another student from Konall named Ryan and we went out to dinner with some of his Chinese friends. I didn’t know it but Ryan also speaks Italian and Spanish. We didn’t speak in English the entire night. It was a lot of fun. We met 3 of his Chinese friends–Richard, a 30ish stock broker, Golden, a music student, and his girlfriend Jasmine who is studying Chemistry.
We wound up going to a Sichuan restaurant (think spicy….VERY spicy). Richard did most of the ordering and by the time all the food arrived (5 minutes later), I realized that he had order for 20 people instead of 5! Needless to say no one left hungry. We had tons of leftovers to take home. The whole meal for the 5 of us including booze was 150 Yuan (just under $20 US), and we will have enough food for at least 3 other meals.
December 4th, 2005 at 6:10 am
Great post! The pictures make it 500x better. More pictures!
P.S. Thanks so much for the good-luck phone call. I can’t say that I think I’ll pass, but then you never know….
December 4th, 2005 at 7:29 am
Justin….thanks. I have been having a ton of problems uploading photos. No clue why. My download speed here is way fast but the upload speed is SOOOO slow. It is driving me nuts. I am sure you did better than you think on the test. I’ll be pulling for you
December 4th, 2005 at 8:01 am
You look like you are having so much fun! I miss you, I cant wait to see you in less than a month!!! I also like the pictures. Manali said the girl she knew who went to China also had the same experience of EVERYONE taking pictures with her. haha. You’re famous!
December 4th, 2005 at 2:28 pm
The same thing happened in Japan when Dad and I were there. At that time it was that scvhool children could report back to their teachers that they had actually seen and could prove the existence of/the presence of/their being with, a gaijin.
I seem to get hungry every time I read your adventure of the day. What fun. Keep it up.
December 4th, 2005 at 4:16 pm
Rachel…..can’t wait to see you either
Grammy…..hahaha….wierd stuff
December 5th, 2005 at 8:07 am
Very exciting. Nice pictures. I qattended the vMiss Teen Missouri Pageant and Miss Missouri Pageant, held in Kansas City, this weekend. It was a marathon and Krista’s niece, Krista Ann made to the round of 15, which was her goal. Made for late nites. Continue to broaden your horizon.
December 5th, 2005 at 12:43 pm
Andy, you look like you are having so much fun. The temple is absolutely beautiful and I remember seeing incredible things like that when I was in China. It is mind blowing to think how long some of those building have been around. I miss you lots and hope to hear from you soon.
December 5th, 2005 at 4:57 pm
Jerome. That sounds like hell on earth….even with all those pretty girls.
Julie…..I am having a blast. I really don’t believe how much history there is here. It is such a foreign concept to me (no pun intended)
December 7th, 2005 at 8:31 pm
AJ
The only thing that came to my mind when looking at that tower was….how could I put some cellular antenna on that sucker!
Just got back from Mexico after a long week in Brazil, Argentina, and Peru. Glad your enjoying your time in China. I’m going to enjoy Reston for the rest of the year.
December 7th, 2005 at 10:24 pm
A
i love your adventures and the pictures. broke my wrist two weeks ago and am learning to use my left hand. oi Terry
December 8th, 2005 at 7:15 pm
Terry….sorry to hear about your wrists….that is no fun
December 10th, 2005 at 11:41 am
AJ – loved the post…and the pictures. I always look forward to your next missive. It sounds like you and Ryan have a lot in common. You can converse in 4 languages!! Wow. Today is the goat holiday party – and we have your blog up on the computer in the kitchen. There has been some interest in it from several of the goats. So if you have some new posts – that’s where they’re coming from.
Love,
Dad and Krista
December 11th, 2005 at 5:14 am
Dad & Krista…..great…thanks for the publicity
Andy
May 13th, 2006 at 4:58 am
Ummm. . . I got my pocket picked at this temple last week on the birthday of the rising Buddha. it sucked. Fortunately I only had 100 yuan in my wallet, and nothing else. I mean it was “only” 100 yuan to me, but some poor fool got enough to live off of for awhile–not to mention a shitload of karma coming back to him or her.
May 13th, 2006 at 5:58 am
Anne…..sorry to hear that you got robbed. That really sucks. I’m glad that you didn’t lose more than that….I usually have much more cash and all my ID and credit cards from the states. If I got jacked, I would be REALLY pissed