Day 5

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Hi there folks. Just as a service message, if there is a lapse in blogs, it's because the Internet is so hit-or-miss here and I have to batch upload photos and do the blog post whenever I happen to find it running fast enough to load the pages (usually between 5-7 AM local, which would be 4-6 PM Central)

Saturday was our first free day after meetings in the morning, so Girouard, Lin, Nacho, and I decided to do some serious tourism. Initially we wanted to shop for souvenirs at a local crafts market which was very positively reviewed on tripfinder. Unfortunately, we arrived to discover that the fair had been moved to a swankier location and now just sold expensive "antiques". We called an audible on shopping and went to the botanical gardens. Because the climate is so tropical here, they aren't constrained by putting things indoors, so the botanical gardens actually occupies several hundred acres of mountainside dotted with lakes and temples.



We hiked up one side of the valley into a bamboo forest and took lots of pictures of plants and flowers. Lin and I got pretty eaten up by the bugs, because she is sweet, and I ran off the trail through the woods chasing an insect. From up on that mountain, we could see across the valley to what looked like cable cars going to the top of the other side. We figured out that the backside of that mountain must be the Nanputuo temple which borders the university. We had been planning to climb that mountain the next day, but decided that we were tired from climbing around the botanical gardens and also lazy, so decided to take cable cars to the top. It was amazingly high and did not feel all that sturdy, but had amazing views of the city and the ocean. Unfortunately it's so humid, you can't see very far.



We were right and the cable cars do go to the same mountain as the temple, but the access to the temple grounds isn't very direct and we suspected maybe not completely legitimate. When asked, the guy working the tram pointed us to a very narrow and very steep muddy trail through the woods. Nacho and I thought we might end up like Kathleen Turner sliding down the hill in Romancing the Stone. Chris and Lin didn't get the reference, so now we feel old. Eventually we popped out onto a rock outcropping above the temple complex and managed to tie into more legitimate paths down the mountain.



The trek down the mountain to the temple was really neat. Apparently the mountain is dotted with little caves that at various times people have used as shrines, so we wandered through this huge forest looking into rocks. Girouard found this one particularly steep descent into a crevice in the rocks and decided he just had to see what was down there.



Here's an example of one of the neater shrines we saw. This is taken with heavy flash because it was dark back there, but these statues stretched back into the cave for a ways and it was clear some of them were really old.



I just poked my head in and snapped that picture, but Nacho is a professional photographer and much more dedicated to his craft than I am, so he ended up on his belly in the dirt trying to frame the perfect shot.



After a couple of hours, we emerged into the temple grounds proper. Nanputuo is a very famous example of Buddhist architecture, and the various buildings housing golden statues were all pretty impressive.



Girouard and I accidentally snuck into the monastery, which you apparently aren't supposed to do, but they left the door wide open and we didn't see any signs telling us not to. Anyway, I snapped some illicit pictures of their stonework before we figured out that we were the only guys not in orange robes hanging out in there and ran away.



Next, we saw these large statues with holes in the side, and each side of the statue represents a different part of your future. People line up to throw coins at them, and the hole that you sink a coin dictates your future. Girouard threw at a side that we were not sure of the interpretation, but he got his coin in a very high hole and decided that meant he gets four wives. The side I threw at apparently relates to children, and the hole I hit means I will have two.



Finally we made it down the mountain and in the neighborhood of campus. We walked to a noodle restaurant we had liked before, and Lin ordered us some new things to try. One of them was pig's ear. I can't say I'm a fan of cartillage, but I ate some and have a picture to prove it. I'm mainly posting this one to make Zizek(my pitbull) jealous.

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Comments

[Bruce Girouard]

Hiking in flipflops?
Chris, After looking at the pictures of the terrain and reading your descriptions of the sites you have been going to, I thought "wow these guys are taking some serious hikes". Then I see a picture of Christopher G. "hiking" in flipflops and think either the hikes are not that hard or Christopher lacks some critical thinking skills. Also, I hope Christopher managed to put some coins in the holes in the statue that represent "great wealth" so he can afford his four wives. Seems like you are having a good trip, hope that is the case! Christopher's Dad