Brian, you're not going to believe this

Today I met up with Diana, the niece of my mom's friend. After lunch near Sichuan University, we took the bus downtown, where I bought a few things, such as a sweater and a dictionary. Then we went into a new shopping mall. On the outside of the mall was a directory board, and it indicated that on the fifth floor there was a place called "Loving Hut". I realized that it was next to impossible that another branch of the Hong Kong vegan restaurant would be in Chengdu.

While I was in Hong Kong, I ate dinner at Loving Hut twice, and both times it was delicious fare. Here's a picture of my second dinner, soya steak with black pepper sauce, and a soup majestically but enigmatically titled "Boiled Momordicae Grosvenori Swingla with fresh & dry cabbage in soup".





The place was laid out sort of like a cafeteria. First you ordered and paid, and then you took your receipt to the deli counter, where you traded it for a numbered token. Then you sat down, and waited for them to call your number. Then when your number was called you got up to retrieve your tray, and met the waiter who had started carrying it to your table awkwardly in the middle of the restaurant. The white walls, off-white furniture, and yellow color scheme also added to the cafeteria effect. Still, it was clean, relatively quiet, and as I said the food was good.

A TV attached to the ceiling in the corner of the room was showing news of some kind. In the corner was the logo: SupremeMasterTV.com. I thought that was sort of a strange name for a news network. While I was eating, the waiter gave me a big magazine filled with vegetarian recipes, vegetarian-related stories, quotes by famous vegetarians, and a directory of vegetarian restaurants in Hong Kong (I was surprised to see there were hundreds!). Inside the cover of the magazine was an ad for Supreme Master TV. After dinner I started talking with one of the waiters, trying to find out who published the magazine, and how it was related to the TV network.
"Do you meditate?" the waiter asked me.
"Sometimes?" I ventured. The waiter laughed and gave me a thin book, with a picture of a slightly androgynous woman of indeterminate age, looking serene and resolute. The cover said the woman's name was Ching Hai. Ching Hai, the waiter told me, was their Supreme Master. From talking to him and reading some of the book, I learned that she was the founder of a religion--influenced by both Buddhism and Catholicism--that prescribed vegetarianism and two and a half hours of daily meditation, had its own TV station, and whose members supposedly numbered in the tens of thousands. Loving Hut was actually an international chain of restaurants, all of whose employees were apparently devotees of Ching Hai. I asked if he knew of any vegetarian restaurants in China, but he said he didn't think there were many. I figured some kind of censorship would have kept Ching Hai from publicly organizing in China--I even left the book the waiter gave me in Hong Kong for fear that if I was searched I would be found with illegal propaganda!

Anyway, trying not to get my hopes up, I followed Diana into the shopping mall, which was oriented as a rectangle with the ground floor as a kind of atrium and the floors above it circling around (kind of like Pacific Place in Seattle). As we walked toward the escalator, I noticed that the walkway was on a slight uphill incline. Looking across the void to the other side, I saw the the parallel walkway was inclined downhill--yet somehow they met at the ends--and I had what I am going to call an "Escher moment". Then I realized that the parallel walkways didn't meet at both ends and the whole thing was a giant spiral.

At the top of the mall, sure enough, was a Loving Hut. I went in and told the waitress how much I appreciated her restaurant being where it was. Then Diana and I went downstairs for some fruit drinks. This is Diana with the alcohol menu:





After that we met up with Diana's boyfriend, David, and the three of us went back to the Loving Hut for dinner. This branch was much more like a restaurant than a cafeteria. And while the one in Hong Kong had served what I guess was Hong Kong-style food (fried rice?), the restaurant here was definitely Sichuan-style. We had Mapo Tofu (soft tofu cooked in spicy red oil with plenty of "ma?"--the tingling, numbing flavor that comes only from a special Sichuanese peppercorn), spicy pickled vegetables, spicy fake sausage, a giant bowl of spicy fake fish bathing in hot peppers and red oil, and--the one exception to the Sichuanese theme--a vegetarian version of Peking Duck.

It's getting late, so I'll have to continue the Border Crossing Saga later. For now, here are some pictures from Hong Kong:





























And here are a few from my trip to Lamma Island:











And here is a shop we saw today while looking for a bus map:





Goodnight!