My sister and I had a little hootinanny one Friday night in December... AWESOMENESS, from the old school! After knowing me throughout my entire teenage era, these three guys probably know me better then anyone ever will again! It was so good to hang with these guys again!
Kailee and Auntie Kim... our first self portrait! The days were warm and sunny while I was in town and we had lots of fun being outside!
It was a bitterly cold morning, and the bus was packed to maximum capacity! By the time we arrived in front of the Barkhor to catch the bus, there were only 2 seats left. But, after we snagged the final 2 official seats the driver pulled out his bonus seating. All down the aisle people sat on turned over buckets, and tiny wicker stools... no pilgrim left behind on this bus!! My seat mate kindly offered me some dried yak cheese, and I believe his seat mates were sharing cookies in the back of the bus there...go with the cookies...
Make sure you have your prayer flags, yak butter, prayer confetti, stacks of jiao, sausage sticks... whatever you might need to do some serious pilgrimaging...
This building was termed the "library" in the English translation. The inside was still under renovation, but the exterior appeared to have been finished for some time. Inside this large building were rows and rows of carved wood blocks, engraved with teachings, histories, scriptures etc... Outside, on this front deck, was a man and his son who were using these wood blocks to hand print mandalas, prayer flags, and other personally meaningful scriptures
The road from Lhasa to just below Ganden is wonderful! Smooth and relatively flat, following the river through the valley for about an hour or so. Then you take a right into a large side valley. At this point most people on the bus will know where you are and begin pointing up, up ,up to the top of a ridge that is now to your right. If you crane your neck hard enough at this point you will see part of Ganden poking out from the top lip of the ridge. Then you will notice the white scar that zig zags almost endlessly up the entire mountain and you will begin to realize that you are going UP that road, in THIS huge bus... The chanting woman sitting next to me on the bus lost her breakfast about halfway up... This road is an intense feat of human ingenuity!
The father and son printing team mentioned earlier, outside the library. They had a smooth system... the man would roll black ink across the block, the boy would lay a peice of paper down, then the man used a wooden roller to roll across the paper laying on the inked up block. The boy then removed the sheet and layed it aside to dry. They were ON.. one motion after the other in perfect time and rhythm. SLAP ROLL SWISH... SLAP ROLL SWISH
As we explored a large building containing several chapels, we heard loud talking coming from behind a curtain. It sounded like a room full of people, and with our curiousity aroused we peeked behind the curtain. This is the room we peeked in on. The older monk, sitting on the throne in the middle of the photo motioned us to come in and gave us a smile and a gesture that told us it was OK to have a seat and observe. The young monks were paired up and seemed to all be in deep, contemplative discussion. It was such a beautiful room with the sunlight filtering in, diffusing all the bright cololrs, and shimmering in the chandeliers overhead. A sweet moment... We hung out until the session was over, and exited just ahead of the mob of monks... after a session like that many of them were no doubt hussling to the general store to buy their evening treat of ramen noodle...
Noticing the massive pile of wood outside this building I figured it had to be the kitchen. What else would need all that wood? Turns out it was A kitchen, but the only thing made in here was butter tea. The large round wooden tube with the metal bands was the butter churner, and there were four huge "burners" where the GIANT vats of water were heated to brew the tea. The churner was all geared up, and when the butter was ready, the tea man would turn the crank, and the butter would pour into the giant tea pot with the tea. Lastly someone climbs up on the whole "stove" and adds salt, the final ingredient. The whole concoction is stirred until perfect, then siphoned into beautiful brass urns. This tea is only drunk by monks during their daily mid-day chanting session, which is quite long. It is the job of several younger monks to run back and forth from the tea room to the main assembly hall with these urns of hot butter tea, continuing until every monk has had their fill. The tea kitchen was quite impressive, and evn though it was crazy smoky AND we weren't able to have any tea, we hung out in there for a good while. The tea man was cool, and I think he liked the fact that people were impressed with his contraption.
The large building in the bottom photo is the main assembly hall. We enjoyed some of the most intense chanting we had heard inside this hall during the daily mid-day assembly, which seemed to be the largest assembly of the day for most monastaries we visit.
