A couple days away...

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A break!

Masumi, Datri and I took advantage of the break from shows and ran for it... after several thoughts about places to go, we decided on Mount Putuo, or Putuoshan, an island in the East China Sea a bit south of Shanghai. It's small, and used to be remote, but now is pretty easily accessible from the mainland thanks to a series of very long bridges connecting several islands. Thus it was that we took a four hour bus ride, then a twenty minute ferry to one of the most holy sites in the Buddhist religion.

The island itself is essentially a mountain surrounded by narrow roads with temples in every corner. We chose a pretty new and nice hotel, and the room was sweet, roomy, and slightly expensive, but split between three people the price wasn't bad. It's a big tourist spot, but apparently only for Chinese, as Datri and I were the only two non-asians we saw the entire three days were were there. As we were getting off the ferry, after leaving the island, I did see a blonde haired blue eyed guy heading for the same ferry, so we exchanged a nod, and I passed him the baton to be the token white guy.

Because of the extended travel, we arrived late in the day on Tuesday, and by the time we got dinner, it was basically dark. The restaurant we chose was good, and the guy who waited on us was super friendly, especially after he found out we were all vegetarians (we're not) thanks to Datri's little piece of paper that says "I don't eat meat" in Chinese. The food was pretty good, and pretty cheap, but mostly we chose it because it was close and we were all incredibly hungry. The funny thing about it is that it was tofu trying extremely hard to look like meat. One of the dishes was "shrimp" with vegetables, complete with little pink, but somewhat tasteless tofu shrimp. None of us had ever seen non-meat food trying so hard to look the part...

After dinner we went on a long walk, first past one of the temples and some other hotels, and stopped under a little red structure that had a meaning that Masumi was able to decipher from the writing, but I don't remember what it was. We sat and talked, and I was feeling good, and finally relaxed and just enjoying being somewhere different from home, when this couple came up and offered us all oranges. They were delicious, and I liked that my already good mood was enhanced by strangers being kind, so I asked, and got permission to take their photo. Afterwards, I wrote down the address of my flickr site, so that they could maybe see it too, so hopefully, despite the language barrier, they will.

After that, we walked back the way we came, and then a bit further, and ended up finding ourselves by the ocean. It's a little place called Hundred Steps Beach, which approximately describes the size of it. With a cool wind blowing, a full moon, and the waves breaking hard on the rocks, it was pretty much the ideal place to be, so we stayed for a good long while. We talked a bit, I played around with more moonlight photographs, and caught a couple really good ones of Masumi and Datri, and we all spent a lot of time just sitting back and listening to the waves. I think we all agreed that even if we'd left the next day, that couple of hours by the ocean made the entire trip worth while...

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Comments

[t]

stephen, ....some pretty neat pictures you all have up!!! ...it seems as tho Shanghai is clean, ...has some decent vehicles, ....seems overcast quite a bit, ....colorful, ....getting around I guess would be a real challenge w/ the language barrier!!! And, are the bikes Circa WWI are what??? I bet they have the weight of a Sherman Tank!!! Guess, they have the wine situation down and are still working on the cheese!!! My thought, you will probably see things while there that you will never see again. And, I guess \"clothing care\" is an issue. Perhaps, the locals down the road can help you all out on that one!!! And the cost involved in such fine service should be all but negligible at best,...or at least from I have experienced. Chi Quong??? Really, I mean REALLY!!! I thought that was a huge issue over there regarding the government. Personally, I have a great amount of respect for it, as I inadvertently fell into a group on one occasion and was quite impressed!!! The Buddhist Temples,... what an honor!!! My understanding is that there is a bit of spirituality over there. And,...so have you all received \"The American Welcome,\".....folks wanting to make their way back to the U.S. as a stow away. Heck, my son (at age four) had girls making their way from the other side of the park in Manilla!!! It bothered him immensely...and in time made peace with all the added attention. sincerely, -t-