Tsing Shan Monastry

We left at 8 (or planned to).

I woke up at 7:55. See, I'd set my alarm, but I'd forgotten to activate it. In a half-conscious, whirling blur I threw on some clothes, grabbed a sesame seed paste filled bun and tofu, and nearly ran to the front gate.

I'd forgotten we were operating on Korean time.

I arrived 5 minutes late and saw no one. One friend arrived a minute later, unnecessarily apologizing for keeping me waiting. As she headed over to the canteen for breakfast, she explained that our other friend still needed to print out a map because her roommate had changed her mind about accompanying us.

At the canteen I learned to avoid the egg and tomato sandwiches, and you should too. My friend took hers apart and showed me why: on each half of the sandwich, the canteen places filling only along the edge where the bread has been sliced in half. Sneaky, sneaky.

We returned to waiting by the front entrance. Then our missing friend called down to us from the library: it's closed. So we'll have no map. But her roommate told her, "It's easy to find and there'll be signs."

On the way out we stopped by the vending machines for water. I swiped my Octopus before seeing that the machine'd run out of water. There's no way of un-swiping, so I ended up selecting a can of some "isotonic replenishment drink."

Not a monastery.

After a 45 minute bus ride we did not arrive at our destination. Turns out we went the wrong way; the person on the bus who told us were were going the right way...was mistaken. After calling some people (who told us the temple is actually quite difficult to find and we should've taken a taxi) we rode the bus back, hailed a taxi (that drove us up the path we'd planned on walking) and saw the below sign.

Yay!

The long set of stairs?
The Mountain Gatehouse, with an Earth God Shrine just inside and to the right.

After walking along a path and feeling like jungle explorers (we were surrounded by plants with extraordinarily large leaves) we found a more promising set of stairs. Up, up, up!

We came to a fork--on the right: a warning sign...for experienced and well-equipped hikers only...not responsible for any injuries...under fifteen must be accompanied by a guardian...

We chose left.

Amazing!

However, the path increasingly resembled a path that wouldn't lead to a monastery. Luckily we found some hikers who told us these paths led to the peak, walk all the way down and turn right.

The right way. If we'd followed our noses (instead of our eyes and advice about a long set of stairs) the smell of incense would have guided us.

Besides incense, the first temple also provided flyers, a map, a business card for the Managing Trustees of The Charitable Trust of Tsing Shan Monastery, and a scary booklet with the causes and consequences of various actions. "Consequence: To be bitten by a tiger or hurt by a snake. Cause: To create hatred with others. Consequence: The mouth will be irregular in shape by birth. Cause: Gossip frequently." Accompanied by creepy, cartoonish illustrations. The front cover (where I expected the back cover to be) deceptively depicts a smiling statue.

Guanyin, a female bodhisattva.
Bodhisattvas are similar to buddhas, but they choose not to achieve full enlightenment so they can help enlighten others, or so I recall from art history. In one legend (that I read about online, she tried so hard to reach out and stop all the suffering that her arms shattered. But then a buddha decided to help her and provide her with a thousand arms.

Here she is sitting on a lotus.
People like lotuses because they grow out of mud and are still beautiful.

I couldn't figure out what all the numbered strips of paper were for, but a friend knew:

1. Shake the container a few times
2. Randomly select a fortune stick
3. Read the number (written in Arabic numerals) of the stick
4. Find the matching compartment (labeled in Chinese characters)
5. Grab a paper from the compartment
6. Wish you knew more Chinese characters.
   

The source of the chanting voices reciting poetry.

Thousand Buddha Wall.

This monk was important, so people carved a statue of him.

We met this man who told us (by writing characters on his hand, which my Korean friends understood) that there were many mosquitoes and had we seen the buddha with all the arms?

One of the paths led us to this house, which I photographed through the iron bars closing it off.
The calander hadn't been changed since January 22 of an unknown year.

Another path led to several empty rooms (probably recently renovated) and turtles with dragon heads.

I liked both the dog and the hollow supporting columns.

The main entrance that we'd missed from the taxi.

And a teeny tiny shrine with adorable statues.

We rode the light rail back.
It didn't even take 10 minutes.

For lunch we went to the Chinese restaurant above the canteen (the canteen was crowded with students from Information Day, and the restaurant has a discount on Saturdays). We ordered dim sum (fried dumplings, some kind of shrimp roll, and vegetable and pork buns) and fried rice. The quality of the food still amazes me. The rice, for example, looks exactly like rice I've eaten at the canteen. Same basic ingredients, same cooking method (do different rice-frying techniques even exist?). Why is one edible and the other mouth-wateringly delicious? I don't know.