New Year´s Eve in Leon: final part

On January first we awake when we wanted. We had for breakfast the great tiramisu done by Pochola.

For lunch Montse made her delicious Escudella, she even had the nice detail of doing it with alphabet soup! :D Pochola done a magnific Fillet Wellington and also leftovers of the dinner. (We had turkey for the whole weekend!).

After lunching, David, Susanna, Curro and I went to walk a bit around Leon´s City Center, the rest stayed at home playing.

The day before David and Susanna had a “tour” with their friend at the City Center as well, so they were our guides! :P here part of the beauties we saw in our tour:



Royal Collegiate Church of St Isidore of Seville, León:





The Cathedral:



We went to drink something to warm us into the pub "Big John´s Jazz Club" that has the specialty of playing just jazz music of the 40´s to the 70´s.




After that we continue with our tour:

The Bethelem:



Where we also did the “asking for a wish ritual”







The Leon´s raised-relief map:



We were a while watching the audiovisual presentation that Caja de España played at Botines, a Gaudi house:







We went trough the Xmas market and turned back to the flat… where we found Montse, Gloria, Pochola and Topo locked in! And not… it wasn´t a punishment due the night before! (or well, I really don´t know… you see, the last one locking the door was Patxi!) ;P He said the point was that we should lock the door or it opens so easily, so, when he went out, he just forgot nobody of them had a key as well! :D

We played a bit, take the dinner (a salad done with the leftovers, a great Spanish omelet done by Patxi and pantumaca done a bit by all of us) some of us went to sleep a bit early… we had a tourney the next day!

A Mystic Experience: Lamas in Beijing First Part

As I explained at the post “My China – Introduction: why, how and knowing what I went” in March 2005 I had been 2 weeks in Beijing.

As someone that takes care more about news of Europe and America, and that haven´t ever being so real interested in Asia, my knowledge about China and Tibet + Lamas, was so poor, but at least I already knew about the problems between them and that the Dalai Lama was exiled in India. So, for me was a big surprise to know that there´s a Lamas´ Temple in Beijing and that there are some people representing the Dalai Lama! But I´ll go step by step!

Lama´s Temple in Beijing

I went there alone and I´m afraid it was no possible to find a guide (not a person, neither a book nor an audio item) in Spanish or English there. So, I had enjoyed the place without having explanations at all… but it was so mystic anyway… that is particularly interesting when you think about where the Temple is located… better if you watch it with your own eyes!



Neither the parking was especially inspiring…



But once inside, the smell of the incense, the view of the different buildings and the people with their rituals, makes the magic to start!

The first thing I did was to ring the bell. As you´ll see in the video, I didn´t know what it means, neither the cost and the person in charge didn´t spoke English… but well, finally I´d understand the cost for 3 attempts was 10 RMB (quite chip, btw).



I´d ask latter on about the meaning of that, seems to be for good luck. Since then, I got the custom of ringing the bell in all the Temples that it was possible! :D
You know? When I´m watching something so beautiful (could be a landscape, a place…), there´s a moment when I feel like levitating… I start to move slowly, like trying to feel with every single pore the beauty that surroundings me. Well, how to avoid feeling like that here:



Go to ImageShack® to Create your own Slideshow

Also to watch them praying was so mystic! Just a pity, again, not to know the meaning of what they did.



Walking around, I discovered something that just latter I knew it was a Prayer Wheel. I saw several people going to make them run… So I decided to do it as well!… while doing it, the thought of “would be this just for men?” crossed my mind, but nobody told me I shouldn´t… :)



There was also a room with a Buddha’s statue that even appears at the Guinness Book of Records due it was carved out of a single white Sandalwood tree, the statue is 26 mts. High.



Yes, I know, the pic of the Buddha is not so good, but actually it was forbidden to take pics. there.

(To be continued).