Chapter the Nineteenth: THe Joys of Cooking

Yesterday was a great day and the best part was that it was prefaced by and almost better day. You heard some about it in the last entry "Crash and Burn" which tells about one very unfortunate incident which took place. I am going to tell this little bit about something else I saw during our excursion. There is a large Taoist Temple a ways away from the school in downtown Chia Yi. It is a very large place with seven stories and several sacramental altars on each. As well as a very large cauldron I guess in which Taoist devotees burn large quantities of "Spirit Money." WE got to walk through the temple and to all seven levels which we found out were symbolic of the seven levels of Hell and each devotee goes to each level to pray to their ancestors and ancestrial protectors to keep them from suffering a fate in one of these hells. One of the most interesting happenings going on in the temple this day was a sort of coming of age ceremony for one girl. I had a chance to sit and watch the process and the picture you will see is of the girls father praying to a diety which looks like buddha but we were told is not.
On a different note...There are few things that I enjoy more than cooking, seriously, I do...Last night was the first night that we had to fend for ourselves in regads to food. I was not too scared about what to do, the first thing that came to my head was, "Hey I will just pick up some items at the local Store and be good to go." So as we were driving around after church we had the opportunity to stop at a store and I ran inside and grabbed some Pork, Snow Peas, Golden Mushrooms and had it in mind to make some stir fry. The first of the Non-American home cooked meals brought to you by Sam Corp, falling off bikes and cooking great meals since 2005.