Got a hiarcut and went to Guanyin Temple

Today my Chinese handler and I went out for my haircut.  By now you must know my Chinese handler has a german accent, which is very odd combined with his Chinese accent. 

On the way to get my haircut, we passed a number of small shops.  There is no rhyme nor reason to how shops seems to be organized.  Among a variety of other places we passed a sex toy shop, which, needless to say, I found very funny.  In China it is illegal to sell pornography, but I guess not sex toys.

We also stopped at a post office where I thought I could easily buy some postage for my post cards.  The first time we were there, I was told I would need to return when the person who handles over seas postage returned from lunch.  This was kind of baffling to me.  Were I able to speak Chinese better I would have queried her about why there are different employees who handle the excruciatingly simple job of selling stamps.  Upon our return to the post office, my Chinese handler and I were directed to a phone book like tome and told we needed to calculate the postage ourselves.  This flustered even my Chinese handler and we left.

I have yet to successfully navigate the China Postal system.  

At the barber, I got a very good haircut for 25 RMB.  That is about $4 US.  There were a variety of Chinese men who had hairdo reminiscent of a young Robert Smith of the Cure and of Elvis.

After I got my haircut, I departed from my Chinese handler and took a taxi to the Guanyin Si, or Quanyin Temple.  Quanyin is the buddhist bodhisattva of compassion.  She is depicted as a woman, rather than all of the male buddha's.  I believe that she is associated with children and motherhood.  She is sort of the goddess of compassionate love.

There were several very beautiful statues and tableau at the temple.  I was forbidden from taking pictures, except of the huge bronze Guanyin outside.  It looks like the temple is getting a major facelift and there is an enormous wooden temple being built on the temple grounds.  The new temple is about ten stories high, all of wood.

The temple was very beautiful.  Below are a couple of pictures.  The red things are some sort of prayer ritual thing, as far as I can tell. The giant Guanyin statue is made of bronze and has two sides.  I sort of caught her on an angle and you can kind of tell she has two sides.