day 141: 泾川 (jingchuan) = 0km

I had a nice big fat 火龙果 (dragon fruit) for breakfast:

Da most prettiest of all fruitz:

Srsly.

Then I went to check out 王母宫 (the palace of wangmu), constructed in the 1990s:

This 王母 (wangmu) or 王母娘娘 (wangmuniangniang) plays an important role in the Chinese mythological pantheon:

In Taoist belief, she is linked to immortality and the feminine 阴 (yin) as in 阴阳 (yinyang).

I don’t know if it helps at all if I tell you that this 王母 is supposed to be the daughter of a certain 玉帝 (yudi):

This guy (the big one in Imperial yellow, not the monk posing in the picture) is looked upon as the ruler of Heaven and Earth. Pretty massive title, eh? Well, Chinese mythology is filled with interesting figures, and we’ve seen some others before (November 29th 2007, January 16th 2008).

There are beliefs and traditions all across the globe - and then there are the people who carry them out:

This guy would definitely kick my ass in a beard-off.

And so would he:

There was a Taoist nun there as well:

And the smiling temple master:

Really, they were what was best about this whole place; so kind and open-minded. We took a group picture as a souvenir:

Then I headed down to visit the Buddhist grottoes:

Buddha statues, darkly glowing in the dim light of the cave for more than 1400 years - it was beautiful.

No pictures.

I got my student ID and my introductory letter from our cinematography department at Beijing Film Academy and went to the local authorities to get a permission to take photographs of their relics:

But…

…it only ended up in a bureaucratic mess that got me very upset.

Merry-go-round, Kafka-go-round, WTF??

I decided to drop the subject and do something meaningful instead:

Get my shoes fixed.

吕先生 (Mr. Lü) wasn’t there today (March 27th 2008), but 周先生 (Mr. Zhou) kindly helped out:

He got a patch of leather and prepared it:

…glued it into my shoe:

…made sure it was all fixed in there:

…then stitched it all up:

I’ll show you a picture of my shoe tomorrow.

Wish me luck.

Soundtrack: Pennywise - “Fuck Authority”

—total: 1823,2km