Week 15 in China

Mar 12, 2018

2 min read

What I Learned

You can't trust you kids with chalk...

or, you know, you can and you'll get this.

The Buddhist temples may not be what you expect.

I'll be honest, I'm sued to thinking about isolated mountain complexes when you say monks or Buddhist temples but we had the chance to visit one and get an almost behind-the-scenes-tour while we were in Nanjing and it was seriously one of my favorite thing sin China, maybe because it was so unexpected.

What I Did

Sunday - Friday

So most of the week I was jsut preoccupied with getting my kids ready for their final show.

They were doing a presentation on and performance of the Christmas by Charles Dickens. Should be fun, my kids are already getting bored and i still have a week and a half to prep them.

IMG_4602
IMG_4600
WIN_20171207_15_25_28_Pro
IMG_4599
IMG_4555
IMG_4556

Anyway, nothing really exciting happened until Saturday.

Saturday

We got an insider tour of the Buddhist temple in Nanjing. One of the monks met us at the front gate and walked us around the grounds, telling us about the history of the the place.

There is the obvious sites the temple and prayer halls and prayer ceremonies, but then there is the sprawling library under ground, the craft rooms, and the cafeteria. It was amazing to spent the whole day with such kind and caring people. They also legitimately made the best noodles I had ever tasted, and I already thought that I had tasted some great noodles in China.

She look us into the the prayer halls and up the tower and also took us to a prayer ceremony showing us how they worshiped. It was a cool experience. After she was done with he superficial parts she kind of took us kind of “back stage.” I sat in their library for an hour or so. It was kind if a surreal experience. Me, an American, sitting in the library of a Buddhist temple in China, reading a French book (The Little Prince) in English. It made me feel like the world was small and vast all at the same time.

Eventually I made my way to the crafting room, where they taught us how to make some needed ornaments. It was really tricky... well it was more than tricky. At one point, I had messed it up so badly that one of the ladies helping us gave me the one she had been working on and took mine so that she could redo it. But eventually, I made it and it turned out pretty good, all things considered.

Because the craft took so much longer than anyone expected, the monks offered to feed us dinner, which was so kind of them, they served us and I have to say, it was one of the best Asian-style noodles that I have ever had. It will go down in history as one of my favorite travel meals along with the salmon in Amsterdam, the mushroom ravioli in Prague, and the potato bisque in Cancun.