细看旧照，滋味非常。
大群的朋友，一样的兴奋。
快乐当中，脑子却浮现了这样的念头：
是否将来，我们都会希望
像这样再度聚首？
27 June 2007
24 June 2007
Hatch Day Present!
haha so happy! and touched but forgot to blog.. here's the shirt from my dear CIs :) :) :)
The Story of the Pencil
(From an author i like)
A boy was watching his grandmother write a letter. At one point, he asked:
'Are you writing a story about what we've done? Is it a story about me?'
His grandmother stopped writing her letter and said to her grandson:
'i am writing about you, actually, but more important than the words is the pencil I'm using. I hope you will be like this pencil when you grow up.'
Intrigued, the boy looked at the pencil. It didn't seem very special.
'But it's just like any other pencil that I've ever seen!'
'That depends on how you look at things. It has five qualities which, if you manage to hang on to them, will make you a person who is always at peace with the world.
'First quality: you are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is always a hand guiding your steps...
'Second quality: now and then, i have to stop writing and use a sharpener. That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, he's much sharper. So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.
'Third quality: the pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes. This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.
'Forth quality: what really matters in a pencil is not really its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.
'Finally, the pencil's fifth quality: it always leaves a mark. In just the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action.'
A boy was watching his grandmother write a letter. At one point, he asked:
'Are you writing a story about what we've done? Is it a story about me?'
His grandmother stopped writing her letter and said to her grandson:
'i am writing about you, actually, but more important than the words is the pencil I'm using. I hope you will be like this pencil when you grow up.'
Intrigued, the boy looked at the pencil. It didn't seem very special.
'But it's just like any other pencil that I've ever seen!'
'That depends on how you look at things. It has five qualities which, if you manage to hang on to them, will make you a person who is always at peace with the world.
'First quality: you are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is always a hand guiding your steps...
'Second quality: now and then, i have to stop writing and use a sharpener. That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, he's much sharper. So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.
'Third quality: the pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes. This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.
'Forth quality: what really matters in a pencil is not really its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.
'Finally, the pencil's fifth quality: it always leaves a mark. In just the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action.'
18 June 2007
暂停！
Haha cannot post any more photo blogs as my quota for the free account is used up for this month le... so sad...
17 June 2007
The centre is knotted... only for the Dalai Lama's usage
The left flight is for visitors, the right is for exiting... the centre is only for the Dalai Lama... but it has been closed due to the latter's exile...
Door Knot in real Gold
"Real Gold" exclaimed us tourists! "Can we take them?"
"Yes of course," replied the guide, "just that you are under surveillance camera!"
Main Entrance, Potala Palace
And so we are, at the main entrance... and by this time, i was already suffering from a lack of oxygen... headache coming in and all... even holding on my breath for a shot of the camera seems like an arduous task!
Daunting!
Do you know every single stone is put in place by an unmarried woman for this flight of stairs all the way up to the main entrance of the Potala? It's scary to even imagine it get done...
16 June 2007
寺前广场
See the pole in the centre? The guide told us its either meaning that there is a living buddha in the temple or that the temple is a very sacred place.
千佛像
Depiction of a thousand buddhas means the completion of cultivation... a very famous art form in tibetan monasteries! Though we can see that the painting is a bit damaged due to mis-management...
大昭寺大门
We were on to the Jokhang, the most revered of all the monasteries in Tibet. Jokhang means the temple of the sakymuni buddha (如来佛) . Quite a legend was spun behind the building of the monastery in the 7th century. Very very crowded though...
Stupa commemorating the old main city gate that was previously torn down
Stupa commemorating the old main city gate that was previously torn down, originally uploaded by crassus08.
Heard from the guide that the old city gate was torn down years ago. The tibetan people felt that it was very damaging to the 龙脉 （lifeline）of the city so they had a stupa built in place instead.
Emergency Oxygen Device
As the train travels above 3000m, altitude sickness is likely to occur even though the air pressure is controlled in the cabin. Thus in the case whereby passengers do not feel well, they can use the breathing tubes to connect to the oxygen outlet at each of the seat in the cabin! Lucky i did not use that :p
Yang Xiao, a fellow passenger
then we met a boy on board who was always coming over and talking to us and so on.. sometimes he is a pain and sometimes he is our joy and laughter.... look at him... yeah you got it! :p
Look at the self-created smoke!
You put the seasonings in and you pull a string and voila! smoke comes out and the box becomes hot and in 10 mins time you have ready-to-eat food on the table!
Hungry Hungry!
then we got hungry... and we wanted hot food.. (though they say food is ultra expensive on board).. in the end we bought some instant food.....
青藏铁路风景（一)
And so we went through a lot of ups and downs in the valleys on the tibetan plateau and the highest point was 4999 metres in height.
Now how high is that? If you convert them to hdb standards, it would be a 1333 storeys in height!
And did i say that the air pressure can be quite bad at times? Ears are always block and headaches are common occurrences here...
Inside the 6-seater Cabin
So it was squeezing into these 6-sleeper cabins through the tibetan railway... the tour agency told us they could not give us 4 sleeper cabins because the Chinese government might withdraw them anytime they pleases.. i wonder if it was really true... and it was one of my worst rides of my life... worst than india even! In fact the indian train ride was so much better! :p
Sheep in the mountain valley!
What a serene sight! All nature and all is fine.. if the world could be similar...
Prayer Flags on a Stupa (Qinghai Lake, highest in the world, 7 timesthe size of Singapore)
Sometimes i look at the numerous flags and i wonder to myself, why are there so many faithful people in tibet?
Sometimes i look elsewhere and i ask myself why are there so many people who lose themselves?
14 June 2007
近距离欣赏
The namesake of the temple actually means the temple of the 100 thousand lions' roar buddha matreiya. (十万狮子吼佛像的弥勒寺)
As the guide told us, " 塔尔寺有三绝！"
So what are the 3 wonders?
1. The wall paintings
2. Embroidery
3. Butter sculptures
According to research, the wall painting were made up of materials like precious stones and minerals like gold and pearl and even thousand-year-old coral. In the making process, these precious materials were grounded into powder and put into the construction of the murals.
As for the embroidery, fur from the yaks and other animals as well as precious stones were put together to produce images of deities and buddhas. It was said that the eyes of a protective deity from a set of work was so vivid that no matter which angle you look at it, they seemed to be staring right at you. The guide told us that it was a way to remind devotees to constantly do good lest punishment befall on them. Interesting!
The last is also the most amazing! Butter Sculpting has to be done in the winter months when the Lamas have to go to the top of hills in very well-ventilated rooms and immerse their fingers in ice cold water. Thus their fingers will reach near zero degrees and then sculpting can take place. (of statues and structures, etc) As blood circulation means fingers will gain back warmth eventually (and damage the easily-melting yak butter), frequent dipping in ice water is necessary in the construction process. As a result of their resilence, the works are really awestrucking and unbelievable as i have seen with my very eyes, but at the same time, the Lamas suffer from frost bites and rhematism and even amputation in extreme cases...
The worst of it all is that the sculptures will melt in the course of the year and come winter, another round has to begin! Imagine how much suffering and hardship the lamas have to go through each year?
Yet faith can do wonders!
经轮大观
Prayer Wheels, one of the icons of tibetan buddhism. The saying is that prayer wheels were specially made so that the illiterate will be able to perform scripture chanting by turning them in the clockwise direction. Each turn is equivalent to one chanting of a scripture!
13 June 2007
塔尔寺
Legend has it that when Tsongkapha was born, blood from his umblical cord dripped into the soil and out grew a bodhi tree that is still standing to this day. We were shown the stupa that was housing the tree (photography not allowed as a mark of respect) and according to the guide, the roots of the tree merged with another outside the temple and managed to stay alive!
It was said that the tree had sprouted 1000 leaves and on each leaf was the facial image of a buddha. Thus it is somehow no wonder that Tsongkhapa is the teacher of the 2 greatest living buddhas (Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama) of today.
12 June 2007
Stupas / Chortens
Here we are at the fore-front of the Ta'er Monastery (Qinghai Province), built in the honour of the founder of the Gelupa Sect (yellow hat sect), Tsongkhapa (1357-1419).
塔尔寺
Journey to Tibet goes like this: Take plane to chengdu, china to visit the Temple of Marquis Wu (Zhuge Liang), then to Xining (another city to visit 塔尔寺) before taking the Tibetan Railway to Tibet as to acclimatise -- its a good way as people living in the lowland regions might suffer from an ailment termed Acute Mountain Syndrome (AMS) due to the sudden change in exposure to atmospheric pressure, which might even cause death. According to Lonely Planet, one tourist die each year due to AMS, so its better safe than sorry!
11 June 2007
Righteousness (as far and wide as the clouds in the sky)
I went to check on the translation dictionary and righteousness was the best word to explain “义“. Though i think that a better explanation would be that 关羽（云长）was the best example of being loyal to his sworn brother even if it means sacrificing his life.
Isn't it also living a purposeful life? Life is short, like 关羽 had, he died in his prime but his name was preserved forever in the latter generations. Its been almost 2000 years since and everywhere he is still revered and idolised. Who better an example than him?
武侯祠碑
So here we are, at the front of the board that writes about the famous Zhuge Liang, a military strategist as well as a faithful minister who served his master till the very end. “鞠躬尽瘁，死而后已“ something that means a lot to me as a ruling philosophy in my life. Only with utmost devotion can we live a truly meaningful and purposeful life. What do you think?
Barley Wine Dessert
This dessert is Sichuan style but it also tastes like the barley wine that was offered from a tibetan family during our house visit. I wonder if they are the same thing?
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