We met up with Maria, Norie’s 23 year-old daughter, at around 4 o’clock, after a comedy of errors where we went to where she was, only to find out that she came to the Ohara museum where we just were.
After returning to Jeans Street, we did one of the things on my to-do list which was to try a local desert treat – Extruded purple sweet potato “noodles” on ice cream. I wanted to wait for them because I didn’t want to have to eat the whole thing. That is one of the downsides to travelling alone – it is difficult to just “taste” something. Here is a video of the process of extrusion – they purposely do it in front of you for the fun of it 🙂 When we tasted it we found a slice of yellow sweet potato in the bottom under the ice cream – a nice delicious surprise.
Things were closing up, so we missed one of the museums, as we arrived there literally 2 min after the last people were being let in. We then headed to the Achi Zodiac shrine. As with many shrines, there were many steps just to get to the shrine, but we were rewarded with some beautiful views of the city. I guess the location adds to the feeling of being elevated when you reach the shrine where you will be petitioning the gods for whatever wish you would like to be granted. We passed a woman of advanced years, hunched over, walking with her cane on her way back from the shrine. It reminded me of when I was climbing the 8 hour trek up Mount Fuji in 1995 and was occasionally being passed by 80+ year- olds with walking sticks, who probably make the pilgrimage every year. It was great having Norie and Maria with me so they could help interpret the signs at the entrance to each of the individual shrines within the compound.
Shrine Gate
Petitions tied under the heads of the signs of Asian animal signs of the zodiac:
Daruma shrine – Traditionally people buy a Daruma, make a wish and colour in the pupil of one of the eyes. They visit the shrine and pray. Once their request has been fulfilled, they colour in the second eye and bring it as an offering as thanks to the gods at the shrine.
A few more shots:
Here is a beautiful representation of the animal signs in the roof of a small pavilion, plus many sets of 1000 paper cranes hung up as an offering. The photo below is one set of the 1000 paper cranes.
I will break this up into one last post about the seven course dinner once we met up with Erez.