IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: CONTEST!

Attention Bloggeroos and Bloggerinos and other dedicated blog-watchers:

Jason M Ponto and Corinne L Schertzer are apologetic for their lethargic/lackadaisical  approach to blogging in the recent months.  For this we have no reason, and pledge a newfound enthusiasm for blogging.

Also, we have news!

In three weeks and two days (January 7th), we are hitting the road.  Actually, the sky!  We are flying somewhere exciting.  But you must wait to see where!  Mua ha ha!

New Zealand was the 'warm-up' phase of our travels.  China had a 'forgotten cultures' theme. Korea can be described as 'Christmas with family and friends'.

The next leg of our journey will have a new theme:  we haven't decided exactly what it is yet, but here are a few options: 'reconnecting with nature', 'jungle fever', 'leaches suck... blood!', and, finally, 'the orange man stole my baby'.

Any guesses? We believe that the dedicated and resourceful bloggeroo or bloggerino will be able to decipher our clues and suggest our true location before we announce it.  For this you will receive no prize, but you will receive our limited respect.

Contest Rules: No people who have had contact with us and know of our plans are eligible for this contest.  Please don't spoil it for the rest of the world.

With all our newfound love and attention,

Jason and Corinne

 

Korea, Sparkling

After two months gallivanting around communist China, we needed to get back to western(ish) civilization. With some help from our friends D and Tracy, we ferried ourselves over to "Sparkling Korea" (that is actually the slogan some marketing guru came up with to describe Korea).

The ferry ride was 17 hours in duration and very comfortable. We had our first Korean meal on board, some Bibimbap (shredded veggies, rice and an egg all in a delicious red chili paste) and, of course, Kimchi, Korea's national food! Nothing against Korean taste buds, but cold, fermented, spicy cabbage isn't exactly appetizing to a person who is prone to motion sickness. But nothing a healthy dose of Gravel won't cure, right? Before Corinne became comatose from her drugs, we were able to tour the ship where we discovered another Korean specialty... karaoke! (or Noraebang, in Korean). Unfortunately, both karkoke rooms were full and we were not able to demonstrate our musical capabilities just yet.

We docked in Incheon, where Jason's sister and brother-in-law were awaiting our arrival. We were extremely excited to see our friends again! Tracy and D have been living in Korea teaching English in Cheonan for about nine months. We spent our first weekend catching up with our friends and meeting some of the other foreign teachers that they work with. We watched a foreign teacher band perform at the local rockbar. Jason was excited to be drinking Korean beer and Corinne is now back on the sauce with flavoured soju! (Korean vodka)

Our life on the road as we know it (and as you know it, from our blog) has came to a screeching halt. Domestic life has taken over. We have a small apartment in Cheonan that we are renting. We are working on a few projects for the English school to keep us busy. Each week night we go to Tae Kwan Doe practice and pull some random muscle in our bodies. We go shopping in the grocery stores and actually cook for ourselves... although pb & j sandwiches probably don't count as cooking. All in all, it is a very good, relaxing lifestyle.

We are commited to living in Korea until the beginning of January at least. This may change if we are offered some teaching positions in the new year.

Now pictures!

Our apartment... it's a bit sad without furnishing but it does have a shower, hot water and heated floors for the winter!



We bought a meat cleaver! I'm not sure why, as we are both practicing vegetarians. Maybe to scare away burgalers?

What to do when there is no TV or internet in the apartment?? Let Jason play with your hair. It's not as painful as it seems, really.



This is the way to D and Tracy's apartment.



Our first snow in Korea!!! and D.

Beautiful Jason and D.

We went to visit the local Buddhist monestary near our city.

Buddha.



Picture of the temple and bell with the fall leaves.



Jason and Tracy with fall leaves, no bell.

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

"If they weren't so hairy, I'd be attracted to men."
-D

Quote of the Day (special Korea reunion edition)

"Don't grope me when company's over!"
-Tracy to D

"Who bites in the 21st century?"
-D to Tracy, a mere 5 seconds after Tracy's comment (see above)

rice/cakes

We just finished our dinner. We found a lovely little bicycle in an alley. It was a deluxe bicycle with a wok and an umbrella. It gave us noodles. Well, the man on the bicycle wokked us up some noodles, but you get the idea.

You might be wondering what we've been up to. Well, the point of this blog is to tell you just that. We were at a place called Dragon Bone Rice Terrace. We stayed there for a few nights. It was really cool. We've been using too many words lately, and we have reliable internet now, so its time for a few pictures. They can help us tell the story.

These are the rice terraces. We got there just after harvest season, so there wasn't much in the way of growing rice, but the terraces were amazing. This spot has been harvested this way for nearly 1000 years.

Look how curvy they are!

This area is inhabitted by a local minority. They are in the Guinness Book of World Records for the village with the longest hair. Seriously. They never cut their hair. Actually that's not true. When their hair touches the ground, they cut off a few feet. But they keep it and weave it back into their hair-do some how. When it's all up it looks like a hair turban.

Along the way, we met a really nice lady. She is 50 years old. She led us back to her village (which is only accessible by foot).

This is her village. This village has never seen a car. There weren't even bicycles, and in China that is pretty significant.

This is her. She is looking good for 50! She's fit too. She carried our backpack much of the way.

Then she led us back to her house. This is it. Jason pet the cat and Corinne took photos and the nice lady whipped us up a delicious meal consisting of fried sweet potatoe, veggies, some egg-veggie stuff, and, of course, rice.

We had a very nice day.

That night, we went back to our original village (still only accessible by foot, but closer to a road). We ate dinner, but when we got back to our "hotel" (there were 2 rooms), we found the family that runs it sitting down to dinner. They asked us to join them and we felt honoured. We dined on some fish soup, which is basically boiling water, veggies, and fish pieces (all of them). This is where most of our last blog's quotes came from.

...

After sitting down, our host promptly poured us a murky liquid from a gasoline container. You should have seen the look on Corinne's face when she tasted that it wasn't water! HA! It was quite strong, home-made rice booze. It burned pretty good, but after a while Jason started to like it. He finished Corinne's (twice), and had a little extra for himself. She did drink most of it though. We were cheersing with three grandmas, how could we not drink it! It was strong, and the servings were normal water glass sized. We giggled alot that night.

...

The next morning we took two buses to a city and then a train to another city. That other city is Shanghai, where we currently reside. It is pretty amazing. After we rack up a few good photos or stories we'll blog again.

...

Wait! A story just came to mind!

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So, we were walking along, trying to find our way, and we ended up under a bridge. There were several people selling what appeared to be birthday cake. Strange. Why are these dirty people selling birthday cake under a dirty bridge? Curious... perhaps we should buy some! Naw, it seems a little strange to buy birthday cake under a bridge in Shanghai.

...

So, a few twists and turns later, we come across more 'birthday cake'. This was in a much more reputable area... on top of a bridge, behind a construction site. We must have some! We forgot to mention... these are HUGE birthday cakes. like 3.5 feet wide by 2 feet deep, by 7 inches high. Big. We ask, "How much?" He says, "It depends on the weight." We say ok. we'd like a small piece. We make the gap between our fingers the approximate desired size of birthday cake and he cuts. Nice! Finally we have some birthday cake! "How much?" After a pause and some careful measurements, we get the price.

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It turns out that the shocker of this story was not the contents of the birthday cake, but its density. Our "little" piece cost 57 yuan! For comparison's sake, our cheapest accompodation to date was 30 yuan for both of us. A beer at a restauraunt costs about 8 yuan. Jason just shelled out a massive 20 yuan for a new watch. Seriously?! 57 Yuan for a peice of cake! Most dinner bills are around 40 yuan. 57 yuan???!!

...
We refused to pay, he said we had to (the cake was cut and bagged after all). After much drama and a growing crowd of curious onlookers, Jason emptied his pockets (pulling them inside-out for emphasis) and offered everything he had. A measly 18 yuan. The birthday cake vendor was not amused. He wanted to see Corinne's pockets too. She did the same, except that Jason keeps her on a tight leash. She only had 3 yuan. After several attempts to leave, a settlement was reached. We got half the cake and he got everything we had. We walked away quickly.

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How was the birthday cake? A little nutty.

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Until next time...

Jason and corinne

Quotes of the Day

Corinne: "I just wiped my greasy hands on my shoe"
Jason: "I wiped mine on the cat"
(after eating some deep fried sweet potatoes)

Jason: "Mine's good"
Corinne: "Mine has too many head bones"
(after eating soup for dinner with a chinese family)

Jason: "This is some pretty suspect water"
(as our host pours us a glass of murky 'water' from a gasoline jug... it turns out that it was homemade rice whiskey!)

Corinne: "What's that squealing pig noise?"
Jason: "It's a squealing pig"
(conversation during dinner time)

Keep on Wokin' in a Free (?) World

We are now trained Chinese chefs!

We are in Yangshuo, a beautiful Chinese city surrounded by rivers and strangly shapped, jagged Karst mountains. We don't know what "Karst" means, but it looks pretty spectacular. google it.
We spent yesterday practicing our chinese bartering skills, but the heavy rain today called for more indoor activities. So we went to cooking school!

We were picked up from our hostel and spent some time walking through the local food markets and our head chef (a small, young chinese lady) explained what all the chinese vegetables and roots were. The meat portion of the market was also quite interesting. The hanging dog was especially... visual? 'Appealing' and 'interesting' don't quite seem to be the right words. We also saw a man picking out a turtle. Our head chef explained that turtles are "very good for the man" (his verility that is). She told us not to point and make jokes. It seemed to be a socially delicate situation. We also saw a pair of testicles hanging from a wire. We don't know what kind of animal it was, but it had big balls.

Now to the cooking...

We, along with five others, were taken to the cooking school which was located on the Li River. We were each given our own gas stove, wok and other cooking necessaties. We cooked five dishes in total. Two tofu dishes, two veggie dishes and some egg dumplings. It was so good! We got a copy of the recipes so that perhaps we can recreate our masterpieces in Canada. Any takers?

Yangshuo

Jason trying out his bargaining skills!

Corinne trying out her cooking skills!

Our finished products! Looks tasty right?

Monks, Bumps, and Bones (sounds like a good name for a rock band!)

A few days ago, we were in a subtropical jungle. A few days later, we were at an altitude of over 4000 metres, and the few plants that could grow only reached about a foot in height.

Oh, and there were human bones littering the hillside.

How did this happen? Read on.

Our desination was a town called Zhongdian. Actually, it's old Chinese name is Shangri-la. We were in search of paradise. We knew that the journey would take us across mountain ranges and through small villages, but we did not expect what we found.

On our second day of bus rides, we quickly found that this would not be an ordinary bus journey. Our bus driver appeared to be on speed and thought that he was invincible. Bad combination. Then we climbed to dizzying heights, passing other trucks on sharp corners atop steep cliffs with no shoulder to the road. Worse. Then the road all but disappeared into a bumpy dirt path. Then it started to snow. Egads.

Eight hours later, we arrived in a small town along the way. This town turned out to be one of the most memorable of our trip. Litang is a small village by Chinese standards (50 000 people) with a high density of Tibetan people. The town is situated in the Tibetan grasslands, surrounded by rolling, yak-covered mountains and the bluest sky we have ever seen.

We walked to a Tibetan Buddhist monestary, where we were quickly greeted by friendly monks. Because this is not a tourist town, the monks were quite pleased to have foreign guests. We were invited to sit with them inside the monestary, and quickly the place filled up with monks. It turned out to be time for their debate time/examination period. We sat with them and watched the action unfold. Each monk (there were about 100) had to get up infront of the other monks, four teachers and headmaster and take a turn asking and answering questions. We don't know what they were saying, but it seemed important.

On our way back to town, a nice old monk invited us to sit down with him. He moved a few pieces of drying yak dung aside and made room for us to sit. We didn't have much to say to each other, but he enjoyed our company and didn't want us to leave. In fact, after Corinne tried to stand, he quickly protested the movement. So we sat with the monk for a while and tried to explain which direction Canada was.

The next morning, we went to a truely unique and special place. The site of a Tibetan sky burial. What is a sky burial? We're glad you asked. In Tibet, the ground is frozen solid most of the year. This makes burying bodies a little tricky. Also, in Tibetan Buddhism, the body is only a vessle which holds a person's mind. Once the mind has been re-birthed into a new body, there is little spiritual significance of the body. So, as a last act of generosity, the deceased offers his/her body back to nature. At a sky burial, a priest-of-sorts cuts the body into six pieces and after a small ceremony, the body is given to the vultures. We missed the ceremony by one day, but we saw the site, the enormous vultures (6 foot wing span), and a few human bones, including an unmistakable jaw bone. It was an experience that not many people get to have.

After Litang, we took another bus. Actually a mini-van. There were eight people, lots of luggage, and two bags of dead chickens all crammed into a 7-seater, with little luggage space. It was a long four hours. Then we spent a night in another small town. Not much happened except sleeping. Oh, and we took shots of beer with the local police.

The next morning we took the bumpiest bus of our lives. A very bumpy bus indeed. On one particularly large bump, a seat fell off. There were so many bumps that Jason's skin hurt from all the rubbing of his shirt on his back.

Then, finally, after about 32 hours of agonizing bus rides, sleeping in grungy Chinese hotels, monks, yak butter tea, extremely high altitudes (the highest pass was just under 5000 metres), and pee-trouble on the highway, we arrived in paradise. Or so it would seem.

Shangri-la is nice, but it is no garden of eden. It's a bit touristy to be paradise, but we have warm beds, and good street potatoes, so we will stay a few days and wait for our laundry to dry.

Until our next destination with internet...

-Jason and corinne

Proof! Evil! Behold!

We climbed a mountain. conclusion: monkeys are evil

So, this has already been a hard blog to write. Our web browser is in Hebrew. That means that everything goes from right to left. Wierd.

So, we climbed a mountain. We started at an elevation of 500 metres, at a temperature of about 25 celcius. Then we went up. and up. and up. Two and a half days later, we reached the summit of nearly 3100 metres, and about 5 celcius. So, what did we see/do along the way?

The mountain we climbed is called Emei Shan. It is one of the most spiritual Buddhist mountains in China (and perhaps the world). According to legend (actually a sign we read) buddhism came to this mountain in about 63 A.D. So the temples along the way are nearing 2000 years old. The path is entirely hand-placed stone, forming an elaborate staircase the entire way. Corinne refuses to climb another staircase for a very long time! Although we may feel bad for Corinne, imagine the poor chaps who built it! We came across one section in disrepair and it was being repaired. Some guys actually carried the stones to make the path on their backs all the way to their final destination. The choped up stones and make the cement filler right there on the spot. Also, there are nice little grooves in all the steps, to make them less slippery. We saw a guy hand-chisling grooves in the stones. Imagine around 40 km of path, climbing 2 km altitude, all hand laid. Amazing! Moving on...

We started out in a lush sub-tropical jungle, complete with vines and snakes and everything. We made our way to the "joking monkey zone". joking? ha! more like vile little thieving barbarians! While we were in the "joking zone" there were employees of the park to keep the monkeys in line while the tourists go through. This creates a safe atmosphere, and an illusion of security. Although, we were going to get close to a male monkey and the employee warned us that we may get bit.

Ok, so we made it through our first (supervised) monkey encounter alive and intact. We kept on our way. It was beautiful, although somewhat tiring. We saw some amazing waterfalls, and valleys, and sheer cliffs, and trees, and generally nice scenery. Then, it started getting dark. Strange because it was only 2:30 in the afternoon. The incoming mist was an especially ominous addition to the landscape. It was a little beautiful, but spooky.

Then, as we walked, not another person for miles, and we come across a cute little monkey on the path. What was not so cute, however, were the 10-15 grown-up monkeys, also on the path. The grandpa monkey was especially frightening. As we passed within about 8 inches of this 65 pound beast of an ape, he let out a menacing hiss. His exposed fangs warned us that the territory was his, not ours. We held our ground, and passed unscathed. barely. After we reached freedom, an evil fate of torment via ape followed. The evil grampa monkey and a few of his henchmen followed us up the mountain. Finally, some brave chinese food merchants with slingshots saved the day.

We have no photos of this encounter. We both passed through the pack of rabid apes with a rock in one hand, and our raised bamboo walking sticks in the other.

At the end of day one, we slept in a buddhist monestary. It was... damp. Apparently, clothes dryers are not high on monk's christmas list, so things just don't dry. Including our bedding. We did opt for the cheapest option, so what more can we ask for than a roof, right? We woke to their drumming and chanting at 5am.

After managing a few more hours of sleep, despite the drumming and the gongs, we moved on. We exited our shelter to find a thick fog. We couldn't see more than 10 feet in front of us. and that was day two. foggy. We could tell that we were moving uphill, but we didn't have much visual proof as to how far. We spent a large part of the day travelling with four Chinese hikers. We didn't understand each other, but they bought us oranges, so they must have liked us. This brings us to another point... China has the best oranges in the world. Big, fat, juicy mandarin oranges. They're like christmas oranges, but normal orange sized. amazing.

We finally made it to our second monestary of our journey. It was more hotel-like and we only saw one monk. It was also alot colder because of the high altitude. Fortunately, we opted for the more expensive room which came with electric blankets. Nice, right? It also had a TV (very un-monk like we thought) but we were so exhausted that we watched Chinese cartoons and a 80's Jackie Chan movie (all in Chinese of course). We ate our dinner at the monestary and had the largest spread of food that we've come across so far in China. It was delicious, and all vegetarian!

The next morning was thankfully less foggy for our climb to the summit. It was actually quite a short climb compared to our previous days of hiking. We emerged from a buddhist nature path to find a full-fledged tourist track. Oh, did we mention that we could have simply taken a bus to near the top, and then a gondola to the very top? Well, we didn't but many many people did. So the top was quite crowded. It was amazing though. The fog had lifted to reveal an enormous golden elephant-buddha statue. huge! wait for the photos to see how huge. There were also two golden monestaries which were quite amazing. All this sitting about 2500 m above the rest of china (that we could see anyway). It was one of those special times that folk singers write about that we think are corny so we don't buy those albums.

then we walked down a little, took the bus down the mountain, and took a much needed shower back at our hostel.

that offically brings us up to date. Jason is starving and our reward is a nice little vegetarian restaurant and several beers. Corinne already got her reward in the form of chocolate oreo cookies at the summit of the mountain!

cheers!

-Jason and Corinne

If you haven't figured it out, we're in China, people. Get with the times.

Ok, first off, we apologize for the infrequent blogs. We are in China. Internet is a scarcer commodity here. We have some access at our hostel, but its a little questionable, so no photos.

Let's get you up to speed. We flew into Beijing on Sept 15. It was nice. We ate food. We saw old Chinese stuff. We walked along a pretty good wall (some people claim that it's great, but we would like to inspect more walls before we give it "great" status) for10 km. Jason was sick in New Zealand, then Corinne got sick in China (twice!), then Jason got sick in China. But the official prediction is that tomorrow will be the first day in nearly a month that we are both healthy.

Corinne thinks that Chinese squaters are the best thing ever. Really, think about it. You don't have to worry about what you sit on because there is no sitting. I find it quite relaxing! Jason pooped on a train! It was tiring.

There is a massive holiday in China right now. Imagine 1.3 billion people on vacation. Travel is difficult, to say the least. We had to cut our Beijing trip a bit short to get a train to Chengdu. Our train ride was 33 hours long. It was nice! Seriously. Squatters and trains are awesome!

So now we're in Chengdu, in the Sichuan province. We were going to try to go to try to go to Tibet, but it was too expensive and too controlled. A bad combination. Now we chill in Chengdu.

We are staying at an awesome hostel called Sim's Cozy Guesthouse. They just got two PUPPIES two days ago!! Corinne likes puppies!

Actually she won't leave them alone. Now the puppy follows her around. But I told her that he follows a mop around, so it wasn't much of a compliment.

Corinne thinks that Jason is just jealous because the puppy doesn't follow him around.

Harumph.

Let us tell you about yesterday! It was lovely! We went to a public park in the city. Tons of Chinese people were there with their families playing games, drinking tea, dancing, etc. It was a very cool atmosphere to be in. We decided to sit down in one of the "teahouses" for awhile. Since, Jason was a bit sick, and not in the mood for a million people, sitting was a good option. So was getting a massage! Logically, so was getting the wax scraped out of our ears! That was an experience.... we have some lovely (and some gruesome) photos to prove it, but since no photos today, you'll just have to take our word. We saw about 30 Chinese ladies (and two men) doing a strange line dance in the park. Corinne joined them. Jason took photos. Another nice time. Then we went to a food market. There is some huge food festival happening. There was some wierd food. For example, we saw a bowl of live scorpions just waiting to be skewered and fried and eaten. Other 'highlights' include, beetles, starfish, millipede lookin' thing, giant scorpions, and tenticles from some (formerly) sea-dwelling beast. We opted for that latter. So, sea-beast on a stick it was. Spicy!

Now, we're having a down day and just reading and relaxing and playing with puppies and making sure that Jason is better for tomorrow. Tomorrow we plan to try to take a bus to a town to take a bus to a town that seems nice. It's a quaint little village by chinese standards. We'll spend the night and be back here for the night after.

There. We have blogged. Please still be our friends even though we don't blog very often.

Have a nice day!

-Jason and corinne

Quote of the Day

"are there any tenticles in my moustache?"
-says Jason after eating something fishy on a stick at a food market in Chengdu

But where oh where can we get chinese food??

CHINA!

Mmmm, dumplings!

Appetizing eh?

Chicken feet?

Blueberry Pringles are not as good as they appear.

Of course, Jason had no problem liking the beer in China!

Our Tibetan feast!

Stay tuned for more China kung-fu action!

What should we have for dinner tonight?

So, we were sitting in Christchurch contemplating our next move. (Jason's not actually dead by the way... most of him washed up the next morning, still alive.)

We've been buying food at the supermarket to save money, and then cooking it at our hostel. we're getting a little bored of our food options. Pasta and sauce? Never again!

There are a number of great little restaraunts in Christchurch. Lots of Thai, Indian, and western foods.

But we decided that we are in the mood for chinese food...

South Island road trip

So, we left Christchurch on a largeish road trip that spanned most of the southern south Island. we picked up our friend Kevin, and away we went. we didn't even make it out of the city before we had to make a pit-stop. Imagine corinne's excitment to find a cookie factory on the highway. Oh wait.... you don't have to imagine. Just look!




Then, we went to Mount Cook, the highest peak in NZ. It was raining and we could barely see the bottom let alone the top. Needless to say, we have no photos. Then we went to Queenstown and partied like savage animals! Actually Corinne and Kevin watched Jason have one beer while we watched half of an all-blacks rugby game.

Then we hit the road yet again. We saw the lovely Doubtful Sound. This was taken along the bus trip to the boat trip.

Pretty nice, I guess.

Where does the poop go?

Here are some nice waterfalls...right?

Jason and Kevin obviously enjoyed the boat ride.

Next, we went to an area on the south-east corner of NZ called the Catlins. It was awesome. We found a really nice beach house and had it pretty much to ourselves. The shower was so good that we decided to stay for four nights.

This is our beach house from the front.

This was our view from the back.

on the beach...

There was some goof surfing, but it was the off-season (and damned cold) so there was no surfing lessons or rentals.

This is at the petrified forest, one of the oldest such places on the Earth. The petrified tree that Jason was inspecting dates from when New Zealand was attached to all the other continents.

Look! Forest Penguins! Who knew that penguins lived in the forest. These are actually yellow-eyed penguins, the rarest pengiuns in the world! We could only see them twice a day, morning and late afternoon when the enter the water to fish for the day, and when they come back home.

Another Penguin... we couldn't get close or else the penguins would not come out.

So, on our way back from looking at the pengiuns one day, we came across a fat blob of a sea lion sitting on the beach. "Oh, what a cute little seal", we thought. We were wrong. Next time we'll think, "Oh God! A savage flesh eating beast of the sea! Run for your lives!" Sea Lions can flop along at surprisingly high speeds.

This is it chasing Corinne.

This was the last photo Jason ever took. God rest his soul. He's sea lion food now.

Christchurch (are we in NZ or England, I'm not sure)

Christchurch has an extreme amount of English influence in the city. All the streets are named Manchester or Oxford or something ridiculous like that. It has a whole different atmostphere than Auckland or Wellington. Although we are mainly in Christchurch to try and sell Lefty (alas, we must part with our mechanical friend), we are taking in part of the city as well.

We heard that Christchurch has 1 acre of parks for every 4 acres of city...pretty impressive.

The focal point in the city is the church square. It is quite a nice church (as far as churches go) but I was shocked to see a cafe and gift shop built attached to the chapel. Apparently, the church costs $3500 per day to stay open.

Huge chess board on the square outside of the church made for a cool atmosphere.

We were cheering for this guy to win!