Buddha

Traffic jams in Shanghai are the best place to write my blogs, he h eh he. It is really nasty here and the reason is that they are layin some pipes for god knows what an the 3 lanes is raod is now 2 lanes. Friday night was horrible as there was a release and I was not prepared mentally to stay back for it…..:-(. Saturday morning I went to play football with my office friends, this time there were a lot of people and the size of the ground was not sufficient to hold us. We were I guess 8 a side and it looked like playing football in a crowded street. It was fun though. Some skin from my foot got chipped off and the clot in my toe nails is not yet gone. Thanks to the shoes that I am wearing it. Then went back home and had a nice lunch which Rags had prepared. Later I had a small nap before we went out. I wanted or rather desperately wanted to go to the Jaded Buddha Temple, but these guys are too old to travel. So we were just there near the river side and walking. We did some enquiry about mp3 players to buy It for others back at home. We walked and walked and walked. On the footpath there were some native Chinese who were selling some jade jewelery and something really caught my eyes. It was like the claw of a tiger in stone and had some carvings on it. When I decide to buy all the other guys selling the same were behind me to but this and that. One guys even came along with me some distance to sell his stuff to me. He was hell bound to sell it to me and I was not to but it ;-). All the guys in the street were looking at us as to what the hell is happening here. As we walked on there was a guy on the street who was making animals from grass. He was rather weaving it. It was really impressive and very intricate. I could not resist myself buying a dragon. It is really beautiful. And as we walked along there was a pile of live small lobsters and some freshly cooked ones was sold. It was a sight to see smell to relish. I was afraid of tasting it as my tummy had already showed signs of churning out some exclusive dishes before I left the hotel. So we continued our walking. And then a time came when I felt that my leg muscles are stiffing. Phew that pain had come after a really long time. And now we had to decide about the food. I was promoting Chinese veg to these guys but they were not ready to buy that from me and finally we landed up eating in Nepali. The sleep that night was awesome except for a dream that literally shook me off the bed in the wee hours.
On Sunday I was glad that I was going to the Jaded Buddha Temple. History has it that the jaded statues of the Buddha two in numbers were brought by a Buddhist monk from Burma. The Chinese visit to this temple the way people visit Tirupathi. I took a bus and then the metro and then a taxi to the temple. I thought that the temple is far away from the metro but it was not. It is in a narrow street. And when I reached there I saw a huge gathering in front of the ticket counter, and these guys were old Chinese guys, I guess from a village. They made a havoc there to get their tickets and the foreigners who had come there were really wondering what to do, some of them felt great to take a picture of the scene. Finally the crowd disappeared and all of us got a chance to buy the ticket in a disciplined way. As soon as you enter the temple, you will see some smoke from the burning fire and the insect sticks that the people were offering to the Buddha. It was a calm environment with a soulful hum from the monks there. There are many statues in the temple. There was a sleeping Buddha also. The main temple has three big statues of Buddha of may be around two floors high. You really need to look up to these statues. And all over this statue there are other figures some which are the guards of the lord. They were also very huge. All the statues are in golden colour. There is a vegetarian restaurant in the temple which is run by the monks and serve veg food. I had my lunch there . There was another statue of Buddha which was white in colour at the top and as you move down the colour changes to grey. It was very beautiful and you are not allowed to take pictures here. This place was segregated from the entire temple area, it was exclusive club privileges. The roof of the temple had the carvings of miniature Buddha and they were many of them In the backyard there was a pond with fishes. The colour of the fishes was white and orange and there were many of them in all shapes and sizes. There was also different colours of lotus floating on the water. But these were not growing there, it was left by the people who visit the temple. So after this I was done in the temple and walked back to the metro station.
The metro was about 2 Km from the temple. From there I went to a place called Qi Pu road. This road is like going to Alankar Plaza. This street has clothes and clothes and only clothes. Sadly I could see clothes only for girls. Hardly anything for the boys. I was in no mood to check the place in and out for clothes. So decided to go back to the electronic market to enquire about something. I took a BIKE TAXI to go to the metro. Yeah a bike which is a taxi. This guy was telling me I will drop you on my bike come come……and I was excited about the idea. I cannot resist a bike ride so took it and for 10 bucks he dropped me to the metro. The ride though small was good enough. By the time I reached home I was half dead. Had dinner and slept like a log. There was a visitor from the US and we decide to take him out to see downtown shanghai. The day we left for sigh seeing after office was raining all the day and it was pretty cold. We went near the bund and damn it was so cold so cold that my hands froze. I could feel the numbness even the next day. To add to the cold weather there was no taxi available for us so we were waiting for a long time in the rain to catch a taxi.