Putuo Shan - another freakin' mountain!
It was a dull a week as I expected, but still kinda nice to be somewhere with a rountine. But they shipped us off on Friday night to an island called Putuo. I'm on the fast boat back now to Shanghai, but I'll recount the last couple of days. It was definitely an incredible weekend. It's a popular spiritual spot for Buddhists, filled with monestaries and holy sites. I've never seen so many buddhas or smelled so much incense in my entire life. It was really neat to take part in and observe people worshiping in the temples because it is something I know so little about and the rituals that I perform as part of my own religion just don't have the beauty or the colour that this did. This isolated island is kind of wierd, though. It's holy and spiritual, but you have to pay admission to get on the island, kind of like Disney for Buddhists. It's very tiny, and reminded me of the carribean islands that we stopped at when I went on cruises with my parents for its size and the fact that its covered with tourists. We went as a class (28 of us including our Fudan partners) with the Norweigan class from Bergen University (19 including their partners) but some of the Fudan student's couldn't go (including my partner) so it was closer to 40 people altogether. Anyways, we took the overnight 11 hour ferry (yeah, it was as bad as it sounds - we were 3rd class, so most of the rooms had 4 bunks - luckily all the people in my room were Queen's people that I liked). I barely slept because it rocked like nobody's business. I didn't feel sick, I think I THOUGHT I might be sick, so I kept myself up. At least I didn't have to get out of bed like the two girls on the top bunks, I don't think they slept more than an hour at a time. We arrived at 8am, went to the hotel (where we couldn't check in yet, so we had breakfast and threw our stuff into a couple of rooms that were ready). and then went to see the largest central monestary PujiFayu, then went through a nearby trail that lasted us until lunchtime. We had an English speaking tour guide who gave us loads of information on the structures and temples, so I'll leave it up to your internets to give you what I learned. After lunch everyone took a nap (except Trista and & because our room, while we had the key, had not been cleaned and I was not about to nap on dirty bedsheets - this is not how they do it at home). After being cranky for a bit, I got over it as we boarded the bus to see more of the island. We had a great rest of the day and a few of us went to the night market, where I tried to bargain and while I thought I did a good job, I failed horribly (I know this because my first offer on some trinkets for Tina was immediately accepted by the store clerk - so I know she would have taken much less - gosh!). After another early morning, we were told that we wouldn't be climbing the mountain because there would be too many people so we saw the temple of the "Reluctant to Go" Guanyin, a beautiful temple with incredible wood and jade tableaus of the different stories and legends of the Buddhas. It was gorgeous, by far the most incredible sight so far on the island (other than the scenery itself which was breathaking). Well, I'm a little tired, so maybe it's time for that nap...
posted by Jenn @ 2:34 a.m.
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