A Birthday Party For Cecil and John, The Gap Guy

For my birthday, we decided to take the Gap Guys (Ivan came over from his job in Leshan) and Tom to the Crouching Tiger Temple and visit our good friend, Yan Meow, who heads the school of Buddhist Thought at the temple. We walk down to the main highway and get a packed bus to the little village about a fifteen-minute walk from Crouching Tiger Temple. A pleasant day for a walk it turned out.


As we started our walk up the mountain to the temple, I caught a glimpse of a couple of monks waiting to board the just arrived bus. Thought it made for an interesting photo.

On each side of the road, the forest pressed against the asphalt. A few hundred meters from the village, we passed over a bridge. No water in the creek but a few people were playing mahjong on the tables set up by the dry creek bed. Interesting to see mahjong played from this angle.

We make our way to the temple and explain to the ticket seller who we are and she lets us all in without a problem. Looks like John might have gotten lost as we wait for Sunee to give Yan Meow a call to let her know we have arrived.


We arrive a little before 2 PM, give Yan Meow a call and then immediately enter the school area of the temple. No tourists are allowed in this area.

Yan Meow serves us lots of Emei Mountain Zhuyeqing Green Tea and was happy to answer our many questions we asked her via our interpreter - Sunee. We all learned a lot about Buddhism and Crouching Tiger Temple.

Yan Meow plays the gucheng for us. She has been practicing for over a year and was anxious for us to listen to her music. She is a wonderful musician.

All of us gave wonder to the Asian exotic sounds that she was producing. Sounds like a river running down through the forest of Emei Mountain was Tom's comment. Yeh, there is something very special about these ancient Chinese musical instruments.

Dave fiddles (or rather guchengs) around on the instrument. He, too, made some pleasant sounds without really trying.




Sunee gives the gucheng a try. Just plunking around on it produces some very pleasant sounds. Sunee wanted to learn how to play but realized it would take many years to master this ancient instrument.



Ivan gives the gucheng a shot. He plays a bass guitar and so he tended to keep on the bass side of the gucheng, if there is such a thing.

Yan Meow, our nun hostess, bids us farewell from the door of her school. Every time we have visited with her, we leave even more impressed with her radiance and sweetness.

Here come the THREE GAP GUYS! They seemed to be having a great time on MY birthday trip. Glad they came along.

Tom told me he had counted about 500 Buddhas on this old pagoda and got tired of counting. Figured there were around 1000 of them all told. I get a good shot of Tom focusing in on some of those Buddhas.

The table in front of the really old iron pagoda at the center of the side courtyard on the way to the 500 Arhats Temple. A lot of color. Those things on each side represent elephants.

Tom shows Dave around the temple. The incense makes a great veil of smoke for them to look through and make this a really interesting picture.

We left Crouching Tiger Temple and got to downtown Emei City at around 4:20 PM. Just enough time to get a cake. Here the cake decorator is working on our cake for the Birthday Party. We were to meet Bogdan at the two ladies statue at around 5 PM. Our timing was superb!

While waiting for the birthday cake time, Sunee visited with Bogdan about our trip to Crouching Tiger Temple.

Of course, we got the cherries as it was John and my birthday cake.

Happy Birthday to us! This unique little candle holder played "Happy Birthday" over and over. A cute little gadget that worked well.

The birthday meal was fantastic with duck, specially prepared mashed potatoes, kungpao chicken and a lot more!

Of course, the birthday cake looked as good on the table as it did at the bakery. It turned out to be mostly cream with a little bit of sponge cake. It was no overly sweet but very delicious (ask Tom about that).

The Birthday Boys official picture prior to the destruction of the cake.

Here Sunee uses a serious Chinese cleaver to cut the cake and to insure that no one got more than they deserved. No one dared argue with her.


Bogdan also had a great time, making sure that the refreshments kept on coming during the entire dinner.

And the music played on and on and on and on until we were all sick of the "Happy Birthday" song. Here Ivan tries to stop the music. It just would not stop. Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday. Happy Birtday . . .