Mountain Yoga Bliss
I just got back from a 9 day vacation! I went to a place called mountain yoga (www.mountainyoga.cn). It was better than I could dream it to be. First off I ate fresh from the garden vegetarian cuisine all week. Secondly did yoga twice a day and mediated once a day. Thirdly was in the mountains with fresh air. Fourthly, this is going to get too long with great stuff but fourthly I would say were the inspiring people. I went by myself and didn’t really know what to expect but this whole week I had wonderful, intelligent peaceful fun people to talk to. Many were trying to make a difference in the environment or world and many spoke fluent Chinese and were from the US which felt really comforting as I was then able to bring out my slang and English language creativity.
During the weak I was also able to explore different parts of China, we spend a couple nights at a Buddhist temple, it was 500 years old and no longer operating as a temple (no monks) but the feeling was very peaceful nevertheless. At the temple we did yoga under a 600 year old Ginko tree. I forgot how nice it is to lay down under a tree and look up at the sky. I spent some time that afternoon reading under the tree and just looking up at the leaves blowing in the wind. After the temple we took a trip to a farmhouse in the countryside were they served us straight from the soybean tofu it was delicious! There we hiked to the top of a remote part of the Great Wall. Emmy, from LA and I couldn’t quite believe it was real what we were seeing, the old ancient wall with fog and clouds floating around and under us. I didn’t bring a camera all week but I have some really good mental pictures of that scene.
I also got to explore other creativities this week we had some kirtans (chanting, mantra, singing beatles ) a couple of nights. And I found that someone was always handing me a guitar wanting to play and sing. We sang a lot of Sound of Music because that is what both the foreigners and Chinese knew. I have heard the term ex-patriots a lot this week for foreigners living in Beijing, but I really don’t like the term and everyone I met wasn’t running away from their home country trying to find a new life. I found it really refreshing to know there are so many others out there trying to work on similar things that I am. I was able to try my hand at Chinese Calligraphy, which if you do right is really hard, but I just played with it. I also painted and drew omm signs which are really fun to draw I learned how to make one in Microsoft word too lets see if I can do it that should be a om if my website copy and pastes from a word document correctly. If you want to make one all you have to do is backslash “\” then put the font to Wingdings.
Anyway needless to say I had a wonderful time. And if you are ever in China mountain yoga is a great place to check out. Now I am back in Harbin it is very cold today I will go and look for a winter jacket although I think my body is tired from the traveling, stress and not good food of yesterday’s journey home. It got very spoiled for 9 days and now I hope to bring as much of that spoiling into my daily practice as possible.
Peace!
During the weak I was also able to explore different parts of China, we spend a couple nights at a Buddhist temple, it was 500 years old and no longer operating as a temple (no monks) but the feeling was very peaceful nevertheless. At the temple we did yoga under a 600 year old Ginko tree. I forgot how nice it is to lay down under a tree and look up at the sky. I spent some time that afternoon reading under the tree and just looking up at the leaves blowing in the wind. After the temple we took a trip to a farmhouse in the countryside were they served us straight from the soybean tofu it was delicious! There we hiked to the top of a remote part of the Great Wall. Emmy, from LA and I couldn’t quite believe it was real what we were seeing, the old ancient wall with fog and clouds floating around and under us. I didn’t bring a camera all week but I have some really good mental pictures of that scene.
I also got to explore other creativities this week we had some kirtans (chanting, mantra, singing beatles ) a couple of nights. And I found that someone was always handing me a guitar wanting to play and sing. We sang a lot of Sound of Music because that is what both the foreigners and Chinese knew. I have heard the term ex-patriots a lot this week for foreigners living in Beijing, but I really don’t like the term and everyone I met wasn’t running away from their home country trying to find a new life. I found it really refreshing to know there are so many others out there trying to work on similar things that I am. I was able to try my hand at Chinese Calligraphy, which if you do right is really hard, but I just played with it. I also painted and drew omm signs which are really fun to draw I learned how to make one in Microsoft word too lets see if I can do it that should be a om if my website copy and pastes from a word document correctly. If you want to make one all you have to do is backslash “\” then put the font to Wingdings.
Anyway needless to say I had a wonderful time. And if you are ever in China mountain yoga is a great place to check out. Now I am back in Harbin it is very cold today I will go and look for a winter jacket although I think my body is tired from the traveling, stress and not good food of yesterday’s journey home. It got very spoiled for 9 days and now I hope to bring as much of that spoiling into my daily practice as possible.
Peace!
