Yesterday was Valentines Day. Jiajia bought me 5 new goldfish (to replace George, Margaret and Gemma who, frankly, didn't last very long!). I bought her some cacti and a cheesecake!?
It was also Lantern Festival yesterday, which marks the end of Spring Festival, and one of the many traditions associated with it is to visit a Buddhist temple and eat vegetarian food. A friend of Jiajia's friends offered to show us a new temple we'd not seen before, tucked away amongst a housing estate. There can't be many temples in or around Kunming that I haven't visited before, so I grabbed the chance to explore a new one. It was small and a fairly modern build I think, but the people who had gathered there to celebrate were very friendly and we had a nice meal and an interesting look round. There were no monks, as such, but it seems to be run very efficiently by a band of local elderly women. It reminded me of a community gathering in a church hall at times.
It was also Lantern Festival yesterday, which marks the end of Spring Festival, and one of the many traditions associated with it is to visit a Buddhist temple and eat vegetarian food. A friend of Jiajia's friends offered to show us a new temple we'd not seen before, tucked away amongst a housing estate. There can't be many temples in or around Kunming that I haven't visited before, so I grabbed the chance to explore a new one. It was small and a fairly modern build I think, but the people who had gathered there to celebrate were very friendly and we had a nice meal and an interesting look round. There were no monks, as such, but it seems to be run very efficiently by a band of local elderly women. It reminded me of a community gathering in a church hall at times.
