Buddhist Monastery

Another weekend adventure!

We visited a Buddhist monastery or temple grounds. These are the living quarters of the monks there.
Another view of the statue and stone in front.

The more holes in the rock, the more holy. This is considered to be very holy.

Here I am in the bell tower, bonging the bell.

Some of the buildings on the monastery grounds:

Here we have a lecture hall and a temple with a reclining female Buddha made of jade and precious jewels. It's quite exceptional!

Details on the front of the alter.

We weren't allowed to take pictures in most of the buildings that were being used for prayers and worship, but these two were empty:

This brass warrior was in one of the scripture/souvenir shops.
Lots of people were here  on the temple grounds, praying and burning incense.
I find it all fascinating.

Ocean Sights

It has been so cold and blustery lately, so when Saturday came and it was sunny and mild, we decided we need to get out of our apartments. These are some students we met on the bus. They walked us through this neighborhood of old German homes, complete with castle, and helped us find this beautiful stretch of beach.

It has become tradition for young couples to take wedding photos here.

 

with some of their treasures from the sea!

Lots of fishermen out today,











This is a great beach for swimming. This happy guy was telling us the water was fine and we should come on in!

Here's some of the art and statues we saw along our way.

Lori Hargraves and Donna Radunich

And two more just for fun!

Calligraphy Lesson

 This week in class one of my students gave me a lesson in calligraphy. She told me about the history and then showed me how to do it. I like it a lot and would really like to take a class in it while I'm here. The first picture is my name in calligraphy - written (painted) my student, Jumping.

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Hi Friends, I don't know if I will be able to complete this blog or not as all the tabs, icons, and instructions are now in Chinese for some unknown reason. We'll see how this goes!
WARNING!: The following blog is all flowers! My friend Kris and I went to ZhongShan park where they were celebrating a chrysanthemum  festival. I've never see so many varieties of chrysanthemum! And I've never seen them trained into trellis' and shapes - Like the Dragon that curved down the block!There must be some vine varieties. The weather was just perfect for our outing - and then it rained!

Aren't they cute!

OK, well one picture isn't flowers.

Hi All - Most of the foreign teachers (like me) and students live in the 7-story international building. The international students put on a Chinese festival last week. They learned and put on a marvelous show of  Chinese songs, dancing, instruments, Tai Chi, and martial arts demonstrations. They also had booths selling food from all the places they're from.  And lucky for us, all the festivities happened in the parking lot in front of our building. Such yummy food!  The pictures were taken from a balcony on the 4th floor. It was a fun day! It was threatening to rain all day, but thankfully it didn't until that evening.  (I hope the videos come through.)