Pagoda, pagoda, pagoda

We have learned that Myanmar is the land of pagodas! We've been to see Shwedagon, the Reclining Buddha (Chauk Htat Gyi), Kyauk Taw Gyi (with an all marble Buddha), Sule Pagoda, and Bo Da Taung. They are all so ornate and beautiful. Everything is painted gold or has mosaic mirror patterns. And there are so many things that go on there! First of all you can't wear shoes inside (I personally really enjoy this since bare feet is the best). Inside you can buy flowers or jasmine or baskets with bananas and coconuts, depending on what you want to get out of your visit. Most pagodas have a different station for each day of the week. You go to the station for the day of the week you were born and leave your offering and then you pour water on the statue once for every year you've been alive.

The Buddha here is the skinny one, not the happy round guy that we are familiar with. He is represented in a lot of different ways, with ginormous ears and sometimes feminine features. The Reclining Buddha was giant!!!!!! 

Oh, one other cool thing that you can do at the pagodas is buy a packet containing a small, thin square of real gold. You  take it out and then press it on the statues in the place that you might have an ailment, and it sticks! At Sule today we got to feed a large pond of turtles. Apparently they like Cheeto/popcorn/leaf salad.

Downtown shows a lot of evidence of British colonial rule. Most of the buildings with this type of architecture are decrepit and falling apart. You can tell, though, that they were once grand places. They are now being auctioned off to be made into hotels, etc. and their facade cannot be changed no matter what happens to the inside. This is pretty great considering all of the other changes that are taking place in the country.

Today after a couple of the pagodas, we went to an opening event for Rose's family's new store. While there were no subtitles for us to understand what was going on, Rose was able to translate some and we sat in V.I.P. chairs while the M.C. asked couples about their love lives during games in order to advertise their new jewelry store. We got to meet the MC (who is often on TV) as well as a Burmese model Ariel Thuta, who was really nice to us.

I really like it here and we are being well-fed and well taken care of. I'm not quite used to being stared at all the time, but it's a small price to pay to be here :)

Oh one last side note/shout out to Hannah my sister: on the plane there was a dairy company called "Meggle" that supplied the butter and creamer. That still doesn't mean it's a good nickname....

No mas para hoy (haven't learned that in Burmese...) Ta-ta!