PARTY for BUDDHA

WHENEVER we go to San Francisco, mom and I love to spend time in China Town.  We like to stay in the hotel facing Portsmouth Square with it's beautiful park right in the center of China Town action.  Across the Square from the hotel is a little Chinese religious supplies shop.  It's an amazing little place crammed with fascinating stuff, but my favorite reason for going there is they have THE BEST giant Rose scented Chinese incense sticks in the world.

Everything in the shop is in Chinese, and they don't speak English, but through many visits, pulling out bundles of incense and smelling it, I discovered these delicious long burning humongous sticks of handmade incense with beautiful rose scent, not an oil like Indian incense, but something right in the formed powder.  They are the color of a dark red rose, with decorative foil wrapped core sticks sticking out the bottom.  The large ones I like are maybe 16 inches long?  The package has a floating Quan Yin goddess.

I usually buy ten bundles, which lasts me for years.  Sadly I'm out now and they don't ship. I wish I knew someone in SF who I could send the money to go buy them and ship them to me, as mom and I can no longer travel.  *heavy sigh*

Well, the reason I bring them up is because over the years, the proprietess must have been dying with curiosity what I was doing with them, so once she kept bowing and saying haltingly at me (while taking my money) Party for Buddha?  Party for Buddha?  First time she'd spoken English!

Since I didn't want her to refuse to sell them to me, I nodded yes!  Party for Buddha!  deciding that was as good a reason as any, because I do keep a statue of Buddha where I burn the incense.  So from then on, all I had to do was walk in and say "Party for Buddha" and she'd show me her current stock of that incense.

Many years later, I ran across a fantastic Blog called Up From Sloth --- and the entry for April 27, 1998 was a very cool account of the bloggers vacation where he got caught up in a Party for Buddha!!!!  So here is the link for you to go read it yourself,
VROUK APPROVED!!!!   (I'll do alot more on Chinatown and Incense in later posts)

UP FROM SLOTH BLOG     --     PARTY FOR BUDDHA

Copyright 2011 VROUK