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.
