Out and About Visiting a Lamasery and the Confucius Temple

A two-fer photo--cow air mask and creative spelling!

I took this picture for the jacket, but the expressions!

Part of my new therapy is to add other items to my mop and broom photography.  Do you LOVE these trash cans?????

  

I caught these priests

  as they exited their chanting session.

 World's largest wooden Buddha

Spontaneous group shot.  Sometimes I jump in and take a picture when I see a group all lined up.  They invited me to join them.  Surely there's a word for that!

Snooping into cracks and crevices

This gentleman's "job" appears to be to spot Americans and engage them in animated political conversations using exaggerated hand gestures and making distasteful facial expressions at the mention of Hilary Clinton.

Confucius say, "Travelers who come from far places should not judge China until they have eaten from our rice bowls for many moons..."

This magnificent photo was displayed in the Confucius museum.  Four generations.  

 Paco slipped his air mask down for this shot.  It looks like he may have fallen among cutthroats!  Or joined the priesthood!  The air was past 350 when we started out.

"ahem...Please Pass the Tiger Balm."

A recent houseguest gifted us a jar of

Tiger balm was developed during the 1870s in Rangoon, Burma, by herbalist Aw Chu Kin, son of a Hakka herbalist in China, Aw Leng Fan. His father had sent him to Rangoon in the 1860s to help in his uncle's herbal shop. Eventually, Aw Chu Kin himself set up a family business named Eng Aun Tong meaning "Hall of Everlasting Peace". On his deathbed in 1908, he asked his sons Aw Boon Haw and Aw Boon Par Thad Boon Sram to perfect the product. By the 1920s, the sons had made it a very successful business empire in Burma with its runaway success, the Tiger Balm medicinal ointment.^[1] The product is named after Aw Boon Haw, whose name means "Gentle Tiger".

From the package notes that accompany Tiger Balm

Tiger Balm is made from a secret herbal formulation that dates back to the times of the Chinese emperors. The Aw brothers, Aw Boon Haw and Aw Boon Par, inherited the formulation from their herbalist father who left China. They called it Tiger Balm, after Boon Haw, (whose name in Chinese meant "Tiger") who was instrumental in devising the remarkable selling strategies that made Tiger Balm a household name in many East and South Eastern Asian countries today. The herbal pain-relieving remedy has since been inherited by many religious affiliations and organizations such as the Aleph Zadik Aleph.

Nifty, huh?  As deathbed wishes go, this one registers high on the smashing scale.  Paco often makes salves and potions, so I'm on familiar turf here.  My mother used to rub questionable mysteries on me when I hacked as a kid as well.  As to whether my religious affiliation will "inherit" the use of Tiger Balm--let's just say it's doubtful, although had the Aw brothers been traveling west at the same time as my Mormon ancestors, I'm absolutely sure they would have been sharing ointment lore across the trail.  You can imagine, however, the SHOCK AND AWE factor as I read on the jar: 

For symptomatic relief of muscular aches and pains, sprains, stuffy nose, itchiness due to insect bites, and ...  ... FLATULENCE.  

Directions:  Apply gently to the affected area.

Little Hat Dude on the Subway

Lots and Lots of Pictures of the Great Wall of China and Megan For Her Parents Because She's Been Gone For So Long!

This is what awesome Chinese students look like!  Her name is Jackie Elyse.  She offered her car and driver when I casually asked if anyone in the class could help me put a trip together to the Great Wall

for Megan--a friend, former student, daughter of good friends, fellow knitter and traveler--who had a 72 hour layover in Beijing on her way home (via the British Isles and Europe) after several months  in Thailand!!

This is how you get up,

and this is how you get down!!

 This is how you sign your family's brand on a designated graffiti wall in one of the towers.

 I'll not be skimpy on the photos here because the Great Wall is wildly diverse and unique in its twists and turns.  You need to get the full picture!

Can you even imagine a marathon here...??

The day was absolutely perfect in every way--the sky, the air--everyone was so festive.  Lucky lucky tourists to catch this day.  Don't let this sober little face fool you.  She was doing a happy dance inside!

This group of Norwegian traveling students happily let a stunning redhead round out their photo.

Sans Chinese??????  Yup.  Take it quick!!!!

Part of a little weekend hiking group we chatted with as they ate their lunch--20 kids and a handful of adults who take them hiking every weekend.  How cool is that?

More hikers.  The crowd was surprisingly thin--just perfect.

I helped Megan write a lifelist when I was her freshman English teacher 10 years ago.  We're both curious to read it again and see if "Go to the Great Wall of China" is on it!!