City of Ten Thousand Buddhas

             

On the way back from Camp we always stop at a huge Buddhist temple in Ukiah called the City of 10,000 Buddhas. There are houses where the monks live and where people come on meditation r

etreats, an elementary and a secondary school, a temple with (literally) 10,000 buddhas, in niches along the walls, a resident herd of peacocks that just walks around and leaves feathers on the ground, and a delicious and relatively affordable lacto-vegetarian restaurant (there is no red meat, poultry, fish, or eggs). We went there with our meat-loving, definitely non-vegan friends and we ALL ate ourselves sick. I can't even remember all of the things we ordered but I'll try to remember.  Seitan satay (which H. thought 

was chicken until I told him), fried tofu, stir-fried eggplant and basil, napa cabbage with mushrooms, hot and sour soup, fried spring rolls, fried rice, and udon noodles with vegetables. The only bad part was that we ate almost all of it! My god we were full. I recommend it if you're ever up in Ukiah. There are very few vegan restaurants that have H. and C.s' carnivore stamps of approval. 

My sister (who I'm going to call Madeleine until I ask her what she wants to be called) and C. went on an epic search for peacock feathers. There weren't as many as last time but they still found quite a few. Here's a picture of the two of them pretending to be peacocks.

Once we were stuffed to the brim with food and ready to die from heat stroke (it was over 100 degrees) we headed over to Real Goods in Hopland, not far away. Real Goods is a solar living center that does a lot of workshops on sustainable living and has a nice bookshop where my parents wanted to research goats. We didn't find any books with any useful information but the kids were glad to get popsicles and we were happy for the air conditioning. H. and Madeleine bought portable fans because they were off to Camp Winnarainbow for session E and it was promising to be a hot two weeks (at the beginning of session D it got up to 107 on the first day). 

Before dropping the kids off at camp (except for C. who still isn't allowed to go), we hit the used bookstores in Willits. My dad found a book about natural goat care, Madeleine bought about seven vampire books that she hadn't read yet (I don't know how that's possible), and I found another book about the sociology of gender (dad can't understand why I won't read normal books). Now I have two weeks without my little sister! The house is so quiet without her. I'm hoping to be able to get some serious homework done. 

 

               

 (The garden at Real Goods)