On Friday -- Feb. 6 , we took the second bus schedule to leave Taipei at 12:30 pm; me and my wife arrived at the meeting point 20 minutes before depart time, the bus was there, but no one show up; so, we stroll around Regent neighborhood for 10 minutes, then my cellule phone rings, they are looking for us, we get on the bus and met up with other members, they shows warm hospitality to us -- new candidate; everyone on the bus get a warm lunch box with drinks; we pick up 3 other members on the way to Puli -- where Lalu located; arrived by 5:30, all the attendee gathered at the reception tea house, warm welcome again, we were told to come down for official ceremony opening by 6:00 pm, so, everyone rush to check in, do a little refreshment and walk to the reception venue, walk in, everyone need to put on the aboriginal vest and forehead ribbon for the welcome dancing; it's cold and rainy, so the ceremony was short; dinner come after, the we had a very interesting event -- launch the lantern with wishes , a traditional event on lunar Jan. 15, the day suppose to end the Chinese New Years Holidays in the agriculture days; the speech after were delivered by the Monk from Thailand who obtain master degree of philosophy from Oxford and went to Harvard, a honorable degree from the University of Hamburg; knowledge religion elite; the speech last for 90 minutes, too quick to digest the content, I hardly remember what's important from the speech, something like " yoga laugh for one minutes " " ABCD methodology for problem solving: Analysis, I forget what's BCD is " it's similar to Sheng Yan master's " recognized it, face it, solve it and put it down , I was impressed by one of the spouse who asked the question to the Monk, her English is so good, she even pick up some vocabulary which I don't understand . we finish the first night by 10:00, My wife skip the speech and went back to the room after launch the lantern, she was right, when in Lalu, shall enjoy the ambience / facility it provided.
I wake up early in the morning, said 6:30, but my wife woke earlier than me, we catch the first breakfast before one; the breakfast is better than the dinner prior night, as I experienced before, the hardware in Lalu is far better than software ( food / beverage / food / service ), it didn't improve much according to my observation this time. we went boating by 9:30 am, visit 2 temples of Shung Chuang, the first monk in the history of China Buddish religion to bring back the kama from India and translate it into Chinese after brought them back, the journey took him 16 years, and the story have be adapt to a mystery novel " the Western Journey " by novelist Wu in Ming dynasty... we had lunch in another hotel, taste the famous President fish, name after the late President Chiang Kai Sheng.
Visiting Chang Tai temple is the key activity for the entire trip, we are lucky to take this trip with YPO, who claim the " take back value " for each of the trip, to be honest, the take home value is something like privilege, what you can get others can't; with the perfect connection and arrangement, we are able to see all the detail in this 38 stories tall temple - a contemporary architecture for most of us instead of a temple for worship; all the sculpture were amazing, it took 5 billions and 10 years to build; met with Wei chuang master wasn’t as impressive as we saw the building and architecture;
we stay until 6 and then took car to connect with bus for Taipei, arrived by 10:30 on Saturday night.
next I will disclose more about my feeling to this organization and my interactive encounter with members.
posted by Roger @ 2/09/2004 12:56:00 上午
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