Shwe Dagon II

Yesterday we went to the famous Shwe Dagon Pagoda and played tourist
again. It was the first pagoda we had visited, and I found it to be
an interesting experience. The sky was bright blue, it was a
beautiful sunny day with a nice breeze. We walked up the stairway
past many vendors selling what? Souvenirs? Worship aids? Maybe both.
Snacks and cigarettes too. The floor was made of some smooth tile,
and we were barefoot after having left our shoes at the shoe check for
a small donation. At the top of the stairs, we paid our 5 US dollar
admission fee and walked in. There were many shrines/chapels, I don't
know what they call them. There were even individual chapels that
were numbered, and you could go to a counter and get assigned one of
those to worship. The outer court made a huge circle, so we walked
around the entire circle. In certain places people could burn incense
at the altar. It was very pleasant smelling incense in my opinion,
but I'm prone to liking that sort of thing. A monk approached me and
asked me if he could take a picture of me with his two young students
(age 10 or 11 I would guess). They were shy, and didn't speak much
Burmese as they had come from Shan state near the border of China.
Ben and I also had a man approach us who wanted to help us find out
our correct animal (based on what day of the week we were born on).
Hmm. He had a calendar and looked it up for us - Ben was a rat
because he was born on Thursday and I was a lion (Tuesday). He then
wanted to show us the right place to go to put water on the buddha. I
said thanks, we can't do that. He then asked if we were Christian,
and assured us that we could do it as well. Ben clarified that we
chose not to do so. He was a pretty friendly man.

-Catherine