Clear Light Festival Outing

Clear Light Festival is a holiday for ancestor worship, but we had no trouble finding much better things to do. It turned out to be the nicest outing yet for the group that went to Heron Hill and Bamboo Valley. On the mountain hike we harvested wild "vegetables": mainly budding ferns (very nutritious!). I had been wanting to see the wild blossoms, and there they were in reds, and violets, and pinks, decorating the slopes that are home to forty bird species, (though we mainly saw snakes). Earlier we'd toured the Fangs' new home, all gorgeously done in light wood just full of knots---it was really something to see! Bro. Fang is especially talented in interior decoration. Later, our picnic by the water finished, we were rejuvenated enough to perform all kinds of exercises on the wide variety of unusual play equipment, and I have to say, much of that you would have had to have seen to believe, (though some of us would surely have been embarrassed to be seen swinging like monkeys if you had been there.) In the fresh, fragrant mountain air, amid Nature's splendors, we were invigorated and renewed remarkably. I recommend the nature cure.
Christian went with his student HaoHao's family to Thousand Islands and is not yet back, but was boating when last heard from.