Cheap Stuff and Buddha's Fingers

Before I came to China, I had heard that I could get myself a new suit for pretty cheap while I'm here. I hadn't done anything about it until recently because I wanted to see what other people paid for their suits. So last week, mom put $100 USD in my bank account for me to get myself a suit. So I called up one of my friends that I meet here and asked him where I could go to get a suit. So Tuesday afternoon he took me with a few of his friends to the cloth market. Luckily, one of his friends has bought fabric there before so she knew which little shop to go to to get a good price. Long story short, I bought fabric and all the material I need to make a suit and having a tailor sew it all up all nice and fitted to me for all of 400 RMB, or about $60 USD. I love China. I have to go back on Monday to have it fitted and make alterations if needed.

So, because I had a little more money that I was expecting to have, I figured I could use a new pair of shoes. My other ones still work, but they have a mesh top... Not very convenient when it rains or for the snow when I get back to Provo. So I went to 夫子廟 (the Confucian Temple here in Nanjing, they have tons of cheap shops there). I got myself a pair of shoes for 60 RMB, or just under $10 USD. Pretty sweet. Then as I was walking around, I found some more Christmas present stuff that I wasn't originally planning on buying, but did because it was so cheap. Once again, I love China.

We went on our last "city" tour today. It wasn't really in the city, but it was close enough. We went to this place called 棲霞山 (Qixia Mountain) where there is this really cool Buddhist Temple. The place was way pretty. But one of the things that this temple is famous for is the sarira-pagoda... Ya, that's what I thought too when I first heard about it. Basically, when Buddha died (the man himself who became the Buddha) they cremated him and took his bones to al sorts of paces, one of them being here, in Nanjing at the Qixia Monastery. They put two of his finger bones in a stone or metal box and build this really cool pagoda overtop of it. Interesting, I know, but it was a really pretty place nonetheless. Especially with the changing colors of the leaves on the trees (yes, here in Nanjing the leaves are just NOW starting to change and it's already after Thanksgiving). Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure...

Really pretty maple leafs.
This cool path that I decided to go explore because it was really cool looking.
This is the finger pagoda.
The cool bell in the bell tower. Ya, I rang that.

I have more pictures, but some are on other peoples cameras and others are just on a different memory card. I'll post more later.