Mangoes and Spiritual Buildings

I spent much of today looking up and cataloging information on exporting mangoes to the US from Thailand. I finally found a key document from the US Department of Agriculture.

Q. When did the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) publish the final rule to allow litchis longans,
mangoes, mangosteens, pineapples, and rambu-
tans from Thailand into the United States?
A. USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Ser-
vice (APHIS) published the final rule in the Federal
Register on June 21, 2007. Under Title 7 of the Code
of Federal Regulations, Part 319.56-47, the final rule
allows, under certain conditions, the importation of six
fruits—litchi, longan, mango, mangosteen, pineapple,
and rambutan—from Thailand into the United States.

I'm still assuming that we're going to hit some major obstacle - like the cost of irradiation for the small scale we're talking about will be prohibitive, or some other obstacle will appear. But in the meantime I'm going to follow where it leads.

On the way back from a noodle lunch I noticed this tree which I'd never noticed before at Wat Ram Phoeng. There is something right about an organization that designs its building in ways that preserve the existing trees.


This evening the AJWS volunteers in Chiang Mai got together for dinner. We'd met Marti last Saturday night at our anniversary dinner and tongiht got to meet George and Maxine as well as Rachel. All and all a good group. We finally had to go because they were closing the restaurant and we have to work in the morning.

Wat Pa Dara Phirom

The meeting was on the Temple Grounds. There are several NGO offices on the grounds. Before the meeting, and during breaks, I strolled around this beautiful temple.

This Temple wa[s] developed in the 1890s, on land donated by a decendant of the great Lanna Princess, Phra Raja Jaya, born Chao Dara Rasmi, 11th daughter to Chao Inthawichayanon, one of the last rulers of Chiang Mai and the Lanna Kingdom. Doi Inthanon was named after this King. [For more of this interesting history of Wat Pa Dara Phirom]from Brick Road Cafe and Guesthouse.

My sketchy translation is this:  

Don't try to do things which are equal to your heart, 

Try to make your heart equal to the things you can do.




This one is for my Mom.  She'll know why.


Talking before the meeting.  

Cut Through Wat Umong on Way to Work

Yesterday I used an extra bike at our building to go to work. But it was obvious when I got back that they really needed it and I shouldn't have accepted the offer. The seat was really hard and the brakes were ok as long as you didn't have to stop in less than 15 feet.

So today I walked again and decided to cut through Wat Umong. Most of the time last year I rode my bike and going through the temple grounds on the bike didn't seem the best thing to do. But walking it was great. And it seems to be something of a short cut as well. I've been trying to grab something from Google Earth, but I can't quite make sense of what I see in our neighborhood.

The first three pictures were going to work in the morning.








The last three pictures were on the way home.





This is definitely not your everyday temple, nestled as it is in a heavily wooded area.

Wat Alaska Yana Vararam - Log Cabin Buddhist Temple

Ben at Thai Kitchen has been asking me to go with him to meet the Abbot at the Thai Budhist Temple. So today we went. Note the blue sky. It was a very nice summery day. Finally.





Phramaja (a title for monks) Boonnet is one of a few monks who is here in Anchorage at this wat (temple).











Phramaja Lertsak is the monk I was there to meet. He got his PhD in India and speaks good English. We talked about a lot of things including the possibility of his lecturing on Buddhism at UAA or APU. He has followers in Thailand who want to build a wat for him, but he told me that he wanted to learn more about the world outside of Thailand first as well as work on his inner learning.







This is the room for meditation and and prayer.








In one part of the wat are large framed pictures that tell the story of the life of Buddha.







At 11 am everyday members of the wat bring food for the monks. Today was the Thai Kitchen's day to bring food as did another community member. Thai monks do not eat after noon, though they can drink water or fruit juice.













There is also a library with books in Thai and in English on Buddhism. They gave me a book on the wat.

The wat has been there since 1996, but is well hidden on D St right near C St. and Fireweed. The booklet says there's morning and evening chanting and meditation at 8am and 8pm that is open to the public.

Father's Day, Zen, Juneteenth Part 1

Fortunately, no one bought me one of these. (I took the picture later in the day at Costco) But I did get a card with an Alaska State Parks sticker for the car (yes we do still have two) We didn't get passes earlier because we were gone.


The other pass is a National Parks Golden Pass that they had wanted to get me, but I had to do that in person. We stopped by the Lands Office downtown later and got it there. What a great deal! If your 62 or older, for $10 you get a lifetime pass for all US National Parks, including the people in the car with you. And a call from my daughter. A phone message from J in Singapore was there when we got home. Thanks both of you



I'd been wanting to go to hear Koun Franz again since we'd seen him at the reading of Mark Twain's The War Prayer. I've been seeing notices that the public was welcome to come to the Anchorage Zen Community Sunday mornings. The paper said 10:25 am, so we went. As we walked up, a moose went by in the next door yard - the center is in a house in midtown.

We walked into a room with about a dozen people sitting on cushions on the floor listening to someone - not Koun Franz - talking about the life of a Chinese monk who was an important link to Zen Buddhism. It was quiet, calm, and took me to another place. We learned later that Koun Franz is in Japan for six weeks or so. There are so many worlds in Anchorage!



We drove downtown and parked near the Parkstrip. (I didn't post about J's bike pedal falling off while she was riding and her falling. Lots of people came to see if she was ok. She couldn't get the pedal back on and walked the bike home a couple miles. Then rode it (I got the pedal back in enough, but the threads weren't right) to REI where they fixed it for free (it is just barely a year old) and she rode back home. But the next day she got a pain in her side.



She can walk, she can sit, she can lie. But moving from one of those positions to the other hurts. And the bike is on hold till she feels better.) We were hoping to take in the Juneteenth Celebrations. We passed the Veteran's memorial.



But things weren't really happening yet. It was about 11am.



So we wandered on into downtown past the Martin Luther King Memorial headed for the Snow City Cafe for breakfast. But it was packed with lots of people waiting.

Taipei (Taoyuan) Streets and Tzu Chi Foundation

The China Air hotel is in a suburb of Taipei called Taoyuan. I went out walking this morning. I don't have much time so I'll just post the pictures.

But I stumbled into the Tzu Chi Foundation, which is a Buddhist Charity that does some things like the red cross. They had a global warming exhibit and they found a volunteer named Alex who spoke English and spent a couple of hours showing me around.

Later, on the bus, I met a woman named Jo who's been living in Bali for the last ten years. Interesting stories, but you're lucky, I don't have time.












Bookstore at Tzu Chi Foundation.
Global warming puppet show. My being from Alaska had extra meaning for them.
Alex, my guide, with the bamboo bank. The master said every volunteer should put in 5 cents every day. I asked about other sources of funding. Alex's reply - our money is in everyone's pockets.
We had tea. The whole place was as elegant as this tray of tea.

And then vegetarian lunch.
There's even a proper way to hold the bowl.

Here's the Bali resident on her way to visit the US.

And a fancy porcelain vase on exhibit in the airport.

Leaving Chiang Mai

I had everything packed up by 9:00am, including the few dishes, the electric teapot, and left over food. I started taking things down. Pop, the manager of Baan Nai Lek, and one of the sons of the owner, came up to help bring down the rest. There wasn’t that much. I have a small rolling suitcase and my backpack. J took the big roll suitcase to LA (where she did get to see our daughter going to her flight back to Seattle). Pet, Ping, and Bon, were already downstairs loading the pickup.

We took the bike back to the bike shop and then went to the Buddha Image shopping center. Actually I should have gotten the name. It’s on the way to the airport. A market that has Buddha images, chains of all varieties to wear them on, and places that make plastic and glass covers to put the images in.


This is a whole world of its own. Ping is the expert and took me around while we were waiting. Lewis had asked if I could bring him three more images back from Thailand. We had gotten him a Buddha image at the temple near Sanaoom Luang in Bangkok back in 1968 and he wanted enough for the rest of his family. Of course, we got this done on my very last day, in the very last hour before going to the airport.







I had asked Ping to help me with this since this is his speciality. He brought me three images from his collection yesterday and today we took them to be put in covers so you can put them on chains. These are like any collectable item - there are good ones and better ones, ones that have various different meanings. There made of clay, of stone, of various metals, and he showed me one made of the eye of a coconut. In Thai you don’t use the word ‘buy’ when you purchase an image, you use the word for ‘rent’. The three he gave to me include a metal image of Rian Luang Po Chem a famous monk from Phuket, a white one, not sure what it is made of, of a monk covering his eyes, who brings wealth, and a little tiny one, Phra Rot, that protects against harm


While the man was making the plastic cases, we bought three chains for Lewis family to wear them around their necks.

There are so many worlds hidden away in Thailand and here on my last day, on the way to the airport I got to discover one more, and be reminded of how little I’ve seen, though it seems I’ve seen a lot.

I’m trying to treat this like a border run, I’ll be back soon. We’re talking about December - after the election and after the Anchorage International Film Festival. But it’s hard to leave people you’ve grown attached to.

At the airport I learned the plane would leave 45 minutes late, but I should have time to catch the Singapore flight. There’s wifi, but you have to pay for it. There was a coffee shop outside of security that said free wifi. I think I can wait.

11pm I wrote this at the Chiang Mai airport and I'm posting it from my son's apartment in Singapore. I'm in a bit of culture shock. I haven't been in Singapore since 1968 or so. I knew it had changed and all, but coming here from Chiang Mai is like going to NY City from Anchorage.