We rode a bus up a really steep mountain past some beautiful scenery with lots of tea bushes growing on the mountain side that would have been even more spectacular if it wasn’t raining – (it seems to rain most of December and January in the Zhejiang province) to a Buddhist temple. The Xuedou Temple was built in the Jin Dynasty (265-420), the temple was honored by emperors of the Song Dynasty as Xuedou Holy Temple" and "One of the Ten Greatest Temples of the Zen Sect of the Country." What was unique about this one is that it was filled with lots of doll sized brightly colored happy Buddha. The happy Buddha is my favorite so I was smiling the whole way past all the hundreds of different doll type Buddha. Some were eating, some were drinking, some were lying down but all of them were definitely having a good time. Also the temple had a nice western toilet (ok I tried but – I hadn’t adapted completely).
After we got back down the mountain we ate at a good noodle shop that all the students frequent which means it is cheap but good and then walked to Stilwell’s old High School and got permission to go in.
Side note - I have learned to love a hot noodle bowl on a cold winter day. My favorite is Da Pai Mien (Big Piece Noodle) which really means a large piece of meat (translate into pork chop) inside a noodle bowl. The restaurant located near our campus called “Today” had my favorite version. All for 5 Yuan – which is about 60 cents.
