Jade Buddha Festival

 A Buddhist monk right after performing a ceremony at the Jade Buddha altar

A while ago we went to a Jade Buddha Festival in Escondido which turned out to be a big gathering of individuals of a Vietnamese nationality. Well, turns out it's a fairly regular event. Right now they moved the Jade Buddha statue to Grape Day Park in Escondido and from there it's probably going to travel around the world.

An altar in the open air

As it was it was more like a regular street fair: booths with merchandise and Vietnamese food like eggrolls (my favourites) and noodle soup. Lots of trinkets for sale including miniaturized statures of the aforementioned Buddha and other saints. But the centerpiece of a festival and what makes it different from the street fair is the religious setting with the Jade Buddha mounted high above. People would pray right there in the open.

A monk and a nun are giving a lecture on the Buddhist philosophy. Brown robe is common for Vietnamese monks.

They also gave a lecture in Vietnamese with English translation. It was about breathing and how if you master your breathing you can master the other aspects of your life. The rest I don't remember as I fell asleep but the chairs weren't too comfortable so it was more like a slumber.

Through the hole

A man looking through the hole in the toast

A Poem

Coffee to coffee

And dust to dust

If the Sturbuck's won't get you

The Folgers must.

Tanya Tries Tomakua

Tanya becomes Tomakua. (Tomasito photo, 2010)

Tanya thought she would try the Tomakua head-dress and struck a pose, 

Very nice!

This dancing mask is fairly thick  papier mache and "Heavy." she said.

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Why Smile?

Why is This Man Smiling?


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Simple Is

Kitchen View. (Tomasito photo, 2010)


As simple does.



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Jury Duty

Tanya photo.

I did the San Diego jury duty as required.

I was highly pleased that I was able to take the "Sprinter" train from Escondido to the Vista station and ride my bike on over to the court house through the very heavy morning traffic--and arrive before the 0800 deadline.

We 250 prospective jurors whiled away the time from 8 until noon when we were ALL sent home.

How lucky we are in this country and state to have a jury trial guaranteed to us--a jury of our peers----just plain ordinary citizens chosen at random--random?--well from the DMV lists so not entirely at random--no homeless folks, etc. but almost random.

Still, it is pretty impressive that it can happen.

When we were told we could leave, the lady in charge said--"Take it easy driving out of the parking lot since there will be 250 cars all trying to exit at once".

"No", I thought, "249 cars and one bicycle!"

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