Chinese Buddhist Festival, Beach Visit, Chalong Temple

Moo dragged me out of my sleeping cave yesterday night to check out the Chinese Buddhist Festival in Phuket Town.  It was so much fun!  I saw maybe one Western person there in a crowd that felt like thousands of people.  There were stages set up with everything from old women singing and dancing Thai dances, to  girls in sequins shaking their booties, to lady boy's dressed in feathers and all things shiny.  


Moo and I visited the Temple where we paid 20 baht for incense and candles, and walked around to about six different altars and made these offerings.  Moo was very serious about this, he said to me 'quiet when we get temple'.  We each paid 20 baht to make an offering of incense and candles at the 6 different altars.  Moo said this was good luck, and that I 'sleep good tonight'.  It is so interesting to me to see the many different interpretations of Buddhism.  I guess Tibetan Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism, Thai Buddhism, and even what I refer to as Western Buddhism are all very different.  One of the things that first attracted me to Buddhism was the belief that Buddhists don't worship Buddha, and they don't worship any one deity as Buddhists believe that humans (animals too) are all responsible for our own path to enlightenment.   I was so confused when I came here and experienced the Thai Culture, because to an outsider it does appear that they are worshipping Buddha.  But then again, to people who are not familiar with Catholicism it seems like the Catholics are worshipping Mary although they claim that is not the case.  This blog is already going to be long enough without my religious dissection and exploration.. I'll save that for a different blog. 

 I am learning more and more that Moo is a devout Buddhist.  Look at his happy lil face to show me the incense and explain a tradition that is sacred to him.

 This is located in a restaurant called 'Nature' near the temple.  I'm so doing this when I get home.

While I'm at it, here are photos from Chalong Tempe that I visited with Cookie and Amanda but never got a chance to blog about.  I thought Buddha's finger was here?  We couldn't read Thai so it's still a great mystery to us.  

Today I decided to take the day off  and do double sessions tomorrow, it's actually cheaper that way.  I've actually gotten pretty good at doing crunches and push ups on my own, and  that makes me feel accomplished on a day off.  In my time off I visited Nai Harn beach and Promthep Cape for some amazing photo opportunities.

 This guy is an amazing jewelry artist, I bought a few gifts here.  After I bought the jewelry I asked if I could take his photo and show my friends the artist who designed such beautiful jewelry.  He laughed and said yes, and then showed me his dancing tooth'.  it was really more like dancing teeth, but he was stuck on the one bad tooth for some reason.

 My buddy Moo, the nature man.

In my last blog I mentioned I would be giving MMA a shot.  Well... MMA is definitely interesting to me, but I will NOT take that class at Tiger Muay Thai.  I'm sticking to Muay Thai and I'll experience MMA when I get back to AZ.  The instructor is the first non-Thai instructor I've had here, he was from somewhere in the US.  His lateness and general attitude more than annoyed me, it infuriated me to the point where I didn't even want to finish his class.  I felt like I was losing a precious day, so I cut out 30 minutes early and finished my work out in the gym.  The positive is- I got to weight train which I haven't done since I've been here.  I don't know what it is about me, but when I lose respect for someone in a teaching position- that's it.  It infuriates me at the thought of wasting my time when I have exchanged money to learn a skill.  If I wanted to talk about how there is nothing on cable TV or sit on my butt while you talk to girls (not in our class) or disappear for 5 minutes, I'd be training somewhere else.  I have absolutely no other complaints about this gym, it's a wonderful facility with exceptional trainers.  This guy is just a 'world class fighter' and you can tell, he has the attitude of a world class fighter, NOT a great teacher.  And he was belittling to some of the other men in the class, the 'man up, are you ever going to step up and learn to be a leader' crap.  Maybe that is the underlying reason behind my feelings- I don't like bullies.