Ningbo Tien Tung Si

Today I set out to Tien Tung Si. After many detours, I finally arrived at the Monastery. I didn’t get proper instruction on where to get off to get on to the proper connecting bus. I went with all my packs just incase in the spur of the moment I decided I would proceed to Putuo Shan. I really didn’t want to stay at that very weird Youth Hostel again. It was very unlike all the other Youth Hostel I came across all over China. The reception at the hostel wanted me to stay another night by leaving my luggage there.

While hiking into the monastery from the bus stop, a man named Han “Cold” from Sichuan ended up walking with me. Well, it was the only path, and there were just the two of us and no one else. He ran to catch up with me to chat with me. He wanted to carry my packs for me but I insisted on doing taking care of my own luggage. He was thin and looked like he could not handle my packs at all.

It was drizzling and Cold was taking a side trip from his job to burn incense and pray for a business deal to go through. I wanted to check out the old architecture out in the back where the Stupas were. Han didn’t want to go because that’s where the dead were buried. I wanted to pay homage to the past masters. I didn’t care for Cold’s work schedule, we were not traveling together, but somehow that was not what Cold thought.

Given the slow start in the morning and all the mix up on the bus, it was quite late already and I knew if I wanted to head to Putuo Shan, I would have to be at the wharf soon. It would take some time to get to the wharf by local public bus. I wanted to make sure I got to the island before sundown because I needed to locate housing on foot for the night. So I ended up skipping out on the rest of touring in Ningbo and went straight to the island.

I took the 2:10pm ferry to Putuo Shan. When I arrived onto the island I got onto a shuttle to Pu Ji Si to look for housing for the night. It was full and I was referred to another place, smaller, humbler and further off called Da Cheng Si by Thousand Steps Beach. People were nice here with a sense of humor and it was less touristy than the other place. I paid 15 yuan for a dorm bed and ended up with the entire room to myself. I later found out the 20 yuan bed was night and day compared to the 15 yuan. But, I preferred minimal crowd even if the accommodation was marginal. To stay warm tonight, I plan to sleep with all the blankets in the room.

After dropping my packs off I went to walk the grounds. By then, all the doors were shut and only a handful of people were still running about burning incense. I saw a woman kneeling in front of a set of closed doors and dropping two pieces of moon shaped wood onto the ground. I watched her do this from afar to give her privacy. When she was done and got up I approached her to inquire what she was doing.

It turns out this woman was from Fujian and came with friends from her town. I asked if she could teach me what she was doing, she shied away. Everyone else encouraged to her show me how to “Pu Gua”. The instructions she gave me was to hold the two half moon shapes in my hand, ask a question, then drop the pieces together and see how it lands. Depending on how it landed the answer to the question was a clear yes, a clear no, and you must be joking. I asked what I should do after Shanghai my last stop in China. I asked about many other countries, India was a clear yes and that I should enter India via Nepal and Nepal via Thailand. I have no idea how I would go about pulling that off.

Canals of Suzhou

It stopped raining so I went for a walk in the morning to check out the canals and the rest of the waterways. During my walk I decided I would leave and head towards Ningbo. I still feel very frail and weak so I splurged and took cabs instead of public local buses.

The bus ride to Ningbo took 4 plus hours of which I slept most of the way. When I got to Ningbo terminal it was already sundown. There was confusion in the communication with the youth hostel staff. It took awhile to figure out the directions they were giving me was for a different long distance bus terminal. They gave instructions without street names but with landmarks. But the landmarks were not significant it was labeled under as ”the tall building”. Well, tall buildings were everywhere. When it was all sorted that we were not talking about the same bus terminal I took a cab.

The first cab driver wanted to meter me without telling me how much it would cost and when I inquired into it he refused my service. I got onto another cab for 15 yuan. I was no where near walking distance like the person on the phone at the hostel instructed.

I checked into the hostel and I was placed in a room directly above the dinning area where the TV was being blasted on some Chinese tear, jerking, drama. I turned the heater on to warm up the very cold room and left it running and went to the connecting café bar. I sat there and asked the bar for hot water. I was not told I would be charged for hot water until I got up to leave. It was the first for me experience getting charged for hot water. The server said I should known of such a rule. I walked out of there feeling weird.

I continued to stroll around the water and ended up at a nearby park where a group of 50 people were all doing jazzercise. They were all women and was being led by a man who was very much into arm movements that are liken to Japanese style. It was fun to watch them move. Then another small group was getting started as the jazzercise group ended. This group was being led by a female who was into aerobic dance and concentrated on floor travel. It was fun to watch them too.

When I returned to the room totally tired and ready to rest I noticed how my room did not warm up. I asked for the reception to come and check my heater. I told her it would shut down automatically after 2 minutes and confronted her that she must have known this already. I questioned why she would lie to me and put me in a room without a working heater. I must have looked really sad and helpless because she told me not to look at her in such a vulnerable way. I was so tired, I was on the verge of tears. She ended up putting me in a different room with a working heater. However, I found out later that the window in this room didn’t shut.

In fact the whole place looked great but had major flaws in architecture design. The windows were designed in ways that didn’t shut. The restroom doors were too big that it would jam into the wall. Overall, it just looked like someone skimped on the building of this place.