A chat with the Buddha and preserved duck eggs.

There had been yet another change to the timetable and it turned out that I was not teaching until the evening.  In the evening I found that the evening lessons had been cancelled, but that's another story!
Anyway, breakfast as normal....or as normal as it gets in China!  Breakfast in the hotel consists of spicy noodles, boiled eggs, cabbage, little bits of what I think is spicy brown tofu, several types of rice-and-bean-based 'porridge' with a side of roasted salted peanuts,  fried rice, little steamed buns, boiled eggs, hot milk and watermelon.  All self-service, except the noodles which are flash-boiled for you as you wait.  Personally, I can do with out the spice so I left the noodles alone and tried most of the other things!  Today no one was teaching until the evening so I was breakfasting alone.  I took a table by the window and started to eat.  Unlike most people there who were wrapped up in their mobile phones, I looked out of the window.  In the distance I saw a statue.  It was a Thai Buddha!  I decided to visit, so after breakfast I popped over the road to explore.

A Buddha!

there were actually four Buddhas, in various forms. Buddhism like Buddha change too!  There werethree other 'forms' of the Buddha, all Chinese, but why the Thai Buddha was in the middle, I don't know; after all it is China!

Three of the Buddhas..the fourth is just to the left, but I couldn't get back any further!

Not sure which version of the Buddha this one is, maybe an Indian one from his early days as a prince!

The Chinese Buddha on the left, the fat one everyone knows!  When Buddhism entered China, the image of the Buddha was mixed with the traditional Putai/Budai figure from Chinese folklore to give the 'traditional fat buddha' image.  I knew I'd find a use for my RE teaching one day!

The Buddha on the right doing the  'respect' sign!

In front of the Buddha were a series of stones.  Each had writing carved into it.  The carved writing had been painted gold.  however time had removed the majority of the gold paint and it was almost impossible to make out the writing anymore.  I asked the Buddhas a few questions, and after I got my answers, I headed back to the hotel.
Preserved Duck Eggs
I decided to buy a few supplies for the day, so I went to the supermarket.  I had been curious about the things that were alongside the eggs.   They looked like animal droppings, but I guessed they must have been some sort of egg.  I decided to buy a couple and explore, after all they were only 1.50 yuan each. In the meantime I sent a picture of them to Angela and asked what they were. She told me they were preserved Duck eggs and that they were usually chopped up and added to garlic and vegetables to make a food dish. They were cooked but she warned me that they were smelly! Time to explore.  I got back to the hotel. Took one of them to the bathroom and hit it on the side of the marble sink.  The outside was like wood chippings, beneath that was something like plaster of paris,

 and beneath that was the blue of a duck egg shell, and beneath that there was an egg.  The white of the egg was translucent brown.  It smelled a bit, but not too much, besides you get used to bad smells in China, they are everywhere! (sorry China, but it's true...at least here.)

So I smelled it and ate it.  Wouldn't have known it was an egg, kind of jelly-like with a normal consistency centre.  Not the nicest of tastes, but another step on the 'eating strange things in China' road.