Marcella and Ale, who went with me for the first half of my Mongolia tour, came to Chongqing with their friend Carl and stayed with us for about a week. Here we are having dinner. Ale is the guy in the red shirt.
They put their pictures from Mongolia on Myung’s computer before they left, and I’m just getting around to posting them here. Not surprisingly, most of their pictures are a lot like mine. I won’t narrate them all, as I described a lot of this in my last post.
Here’s one that can use a little explaining. Turtles have special significance to Buddhists. I am copying and pasting this from Wikipedia because it summarizes the symbolism more succinctly than I can.
“Life in the world of humans is known as “the precious human rebirth”. Born close to the pivot point of happiness and suffering, humans have a unique capacity for moral choices with long-term significance.
The human rebirth is said to be extremely rare. The Majjhima Nikaya (129 Balapandita Sutta) compares it to a wooden cattle-yoke floating on the waves of the sea, tossed this way and that by the winds and currents. The likelihood of a blind turtle, rising from the depths of the ocean to the surface once in a hundred years, putting its head through the hole in the yoke is considered greater than that of a being in the animal realm, hungry ghost realm or hell realm achieving rebirth as a human.”
These are wooden tablets hundreds of years old containing the teachings of the Buddha. Not all monasteries have these, of course, so they are to be cherished and protected, as you can see.
This one takes less explaining. I’m taking a leak in a Mongolian toilet.
Hopefully this doesn’t require me to come right out and say it.
That’s it for the pics.
Nothing much has been happening around here. Myung’s still got her shop and I’m still doing pretty much nothing. It’s time for a visa run, so I’m going to Macau in two days to do that. I’ve never been there and I’m tired of Hong Kong. They say it’s not too interesting, but at least it’s different. Maybe in November I’ll go to Nepal for a month. It’s supposed to be nice there then if you aren’t to high in the mountains. Marcella’s there now and Ale is joining her next month. She emailed that they might work for a tour company, so maybe they’ll still be there when I get there.
So, that’s it from Lake Wobegon. Be well, all of you.