One quiet Sunday

Even a peripatetic rabbit likes to have a relaxing day sometimes.

To that end, Rob and I decided to spend our Sunday in San Pedro, the port of Los Angeles and Rob’s preferred jumping-off point for Catalina Island. We won’t be catching the ferry, however—today we’re staying put and seeing where the day takes us within town.

First stop: Mishi’s, for some leisurely tea and cherry strudel. With Hungarian strudel, the dough is supposed to be rolled so thin that you can read a newspaper through it, ensuring the flakiness of the pastry. Flaky, I can confirm, but honestly, I was too busy tucking into it to verify its transparency. Guess I’ll just have to come back another time to do that—I’m thinking I’ll have to test the blueberry. Or the apple-walnut. Maybe both, just to be absolutely sure. That’s scientific method, right?

Tea and strudel finished, it’s an easy roll down the hill to Angel’s Gate Park, where we find the Korean Bell of Friendship. This was South Korea’s gift to the U.S. on the Bicentennial, to honor both our Korean War veterans and the warm relations between the two countries. And if you don’t think seventeen tons of copper-tin alloy signify a serious commitment, I don’t know what to tell you.

There’s also a pair of jangseungs—carved wooden posts meant to keep evil spirits at bay—possibly best known in the States from a 1976 episode of M*A*S*H. But usually they’re carved to look conventionally scary and intimidating, not...dementedly happy.

Probably just as effective, though.

Anyway. Closer up you can see the detailing on the bell as well as the ornate decoration on the pavilion that houses it. Instead of a clapper, the bell is sounded with a suspended log; however, it’s only rung on certain holidays (New Year’s Eve and both countries’ Independence Days among them) and the log is chained in place the rest of the time. Not that it, uh, crossed my mind to try anything anyway.

The other notable feature of the Korean Bell? The view. Well, some days more than others—today we had the gloomy marine layer that SoCal gets in the late spring/early summer. It’ll burn off later, but for now you almost have to take my word that that’s Catalina looking like a mirage across the water.

Moving on, we swung by the other side of the park to see the Marine Mammal Care Center, a nonprofit that specializes in treating injured seals and sea lions as well as educating the public about our pinniped friends. You can watch whatever’s going on in the half dozen saltwater pools, but don’t expect any performances—this is strictly a veterinary facility, and its patients are bound for release rather than domestication. Well, not every species is cut out to be an urban critter like I am.

As it happened, that day the center was having its Annual Seal Day fundraiser, with food, music, vendors, and carnival games. We chipped in a few bucks for the raffle—didn’t win anything, but seal rehab’s always a worthy cause, I suppose.

There were also a couple of educational tables with marine specimens to show off—these are the teeth of the silky shark. Eep. This is why you never see a rabbit in the water, at least not without a speargun. And depth charges.

Hey, Rob, he followed me home! Can we keep...it’s already a no, isn’t it?

Then a stone’s away throw from the Care Center is the Fort MacArthur Military Museum, built on one of the batteries that the fort—named for Arthur MacArthur, Doug’s dad—occupies. The grounds have been through a few incarnations over the last 125 years: Originally a Spanish public landing, by WWI it was a training center that was expanded to a Pacific defense station in WWII, and later it served as a peacetime reservist camp, a Cold War anti-aircraft base, and, eventually, a city park, although some of the facilities have been transferred to the Air Force and are still used for housing and administration. But for simplicity’s sake, we’ll concentrate on the museum area only.

Can I drop the arm down and do the “You shall not pass!” line now?

Actually, Fort MacArthur is said to be the best-preserved example of an American coastal-defense gun emplacement, as most of the others have been completely gutted for parts; this, on the other paw, is still intact, right down to the dog cemetery that commemorates the first sentry K-9 Company unit being formed here. Only some electrical equipment and the original guns—which locals considered more of a windows-shattering nuisance than genuinely practical, their twenty-seven-mile range notwithstanding—were removed, but the replacement guns still draw draw the eye first upon entering. Ain’t no gophers gettin’ in my lettuce patch!

Inside the battery—which is buffered by concrete walls twelve feet thick—there’s a whole array of historical displays, including photos, old military gear, internment notices, a radio room, and this wall of war-era newspapers. The headlines are what you’d expect, but what’s great is that some of the ads are preserved as well—1941 meat prices were unbelievable! Yeah, I’m aware the inflation rate since then is like 1350%, but still.

Wander deeper into the access tunnels and you’ll see more military relics of the past, including a mess hall and even unused ordnance, such as a Nike anti-aircraft missile, a mine, and, well, this. Of all the days to leave my cowboy hat at home, right?

But one on-site feature that still works: the speaking tubes that crisscross the base, for lack of an intercom or anything higher-tech. So if you happened to be at Fort MacArthur the same day we were and heard someone singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” in the distance? That was me.

And where do those speaking tubes go? Well, all over, but especially up to the battery commander’s station, the low-lying surveillance booth at the top of the parapet. From here, the commander had a pretty good view of the harbor without the hazards of being in a high-profile watchtower...

...and the docent on duty may even set up the scope so you can scan the horizon yourself. He also let me borrow his hat for this shot. All clear, Los Angeles! The sheep of Catalina will not be invading today.

The afternoon, however, is winding down. Still, there’s just enough time to duck into the Maritime Museum on the way to dinner. Ahoy-hoy!

Housed in a onetime ferry terminal building, the museum crams quite a bit into a fairly compact space: exhibits on the history of the port, local fishing and canning, commercial diving, nautical equipment, even displays of rope knots and ships-in-bottles. Not to mention a huge number of boat models, from sampans and schooners to modern oil tankers and Navy vessels. Though of course, nothing trumps the appeal of a good old-fashioned dragonboat!

But my favorite item in the museum might just be this—the original 1913 lens from the Angel’s Gate Lighthouse, which sits at the opening of the harbor breakwater. A magnificent fourth-order Fresnel lens comprised of fourteen separate prisms, lighthouse keepers had to be well-versed in several different disciplines to maintain such a powerful yet delicate piece of equipment; it served San Pedro for over seventy years before being replaced and donated to the Maritime Museum in 1990.

I just wanna see the Bat-Signal you could run through this thing.

On to dinner! We stopped off at Baramee because I was in the mood for some crying tiger beef, but it was the dessert that left the real impression on me—fried bananas with fresh berries and vanilla Thai ice cream! That alone might’ve been a great end to the day...

...except that we had one more stop, this time at the Fanfare Fountain near the foot of the Vincent Thomas Bridge. If you’re reminded of the Fountains of Bellagio, you’re exactly right—same designers and everything.

And just like Bellagio, the Fanfare is a musical fountain that performs a choreographed show every thirty minutes—or every ten during peak hours—to a range of classics from “’O Sole Mio” to “Dancing in the Streets,” with a mixture of waving, swiveling sprays...

...and vertical water jets that explode upward like fireworks. I don’t recommend watching downwind of the fountain if you’ve got fur, but upwind, what a perfect ending to a summer evening.

So that was our Sunday. Unfortunately, our San Pedro excursion happened right before the USS Iowa opened to the public, so we’ll have to come back another time. But oh well—you can only do so much in one day anyhow.

Rabbit among the swallows

Sorry, busy April.

So to begin where it really began, let’s go back to my Northern California trip last fall, when I took an unexpected detour to the Soledad Mission (or Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, if you prefer). It wasn’t the first mission I’ve been to—that would be Santa Barbara—but that’s where I saw a display with models of California’s twenty-one missions, and that got me thinking: why not see Capistrano, where the swallows famously return on St. Joseph’s Day each spring? For a better view of that model, however...

...let’s jump ahead a few months and about 330 miles south to the model at Mission San Juan Capistrano itself. The mission—the only one in Orange County, in fact—has quite the history of triumphs and setbacks: It was founded twice, on a site consecrated by the Franciscans in 1775 but soon abandoned due to native unrest, then reconsecrated a year later. After that, things went well for a time, with the mission establishing California’s first vineyard and expanding to include the Great Stone Church you see on the right there. But then the latter was devastated in an earthquake, and once Capistrano was secularized in the 1830s, it was used as a private ranch until Abe Lincoln returned it to the Catholic Church in 1865. Even then, it was another thirty years before anyone attempted to undo the disrepair the mission had fallen into, and longer still—1910—before Father St. John O’Sullivan arrived and effected a permanent restoration.

And that’s the short version. So how does the place look a century after Father O’Sullivan stepped in?

Well, none too bad, considering; I can see why it’s called “the Jewel of the Missions.” This is the plaza area—you can see one corner of the main quadrangle on the left, and on the right, a surviving wall of the Stone Church. Fire up some Ink Spots, then let’s start with the latter.

So this is what remains of the Great Stone Church. Due to the mission’s initial successes, a magnificent sandstone cathedral was commissioned to supplant the original chapel in the main quadrangle; construction began in 1797 and completed in 1806. With its Byzantine influences, it was unlike anything in America at the time (and even called “the American Acropolis”), but it only lasted six years—on the Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception in December 1812, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck, collapsing the bell tower and most of the nave, killing forty congregants and the two young bell ringers. Time and neglect did the rest; restoration efforts have seen limited results, to the point that only the sacristy and sanctuary are largely intact, though the transept and nave walls are partially standing as well.

Even less remains of the bell tower, however—just the footprint, where the two largest of the mission’s four original bells, also damaged in the quake, now sit. Each bell was named after a saint, so here we have San Vicente and San Juan; surprisingly, they remained in use for decades despite their cracked tones, until finally being replaced with replicas in 2000.

As for San Antonio and San Rafael—and Vicente/Juan 2.0—they remain in place in the campanario, the bell wall connecting the Stone Church and the quadrangle, and are still rung on a regular basis. In fact, they’re having a bell-ringing ceremony today to welcome the swallows back—guess I’d better hurry to the plaza side of the wall if I’m to catch that, huh?

Aw, the crowd beat me to it. Everybody present cameras...and go!

Ladies and gentlemen, your rhythm section.

But did the bells summon the birds, you ask? Honestly, my expectations were low because fewer swallows have been reported in recent years, probably due to the area becoming more urbanized and the birds having more options for nesting sites than the mission’s eaves and archways. And I mean, if I’d just flown in from my Argentinean migration, I’d probably want a little more privacy too. Still, there were a few viewing stations set up with binoculars zeroed in on existing mud nests, such as this fourplex under the roof tiles, in case they decided to grace us with their presence.

Nothing yet.

Nonetheless, the mission holds festivities on St. Joseph’s Day for people hoping to see the prospective swallows, with food, crafts, performers, and other such fare—it basically goes back to O’Sullivan himself, who used the tradition of the swallows to drum up interest in the mission. Hey, whatever means a good opportunity for me to tour the place while the crowd’s distracted. Well, and sneak in a shot with the cutouts.

And where better to start my solo tour than the Serra Chapel? So named because it’s the only place Junipero Serra is known to have held Mass, although it’s also notable as the oldest extant building in California to have been in continuous use since its construction in 1782; after the collapse of the Stone Church, services resumed here and continue to the present day. Granted, there were a few lost decades where it didn’t serve as a chapel—when Father O’Sullivan arrived, it was actually being used as a granary—but that counts toward the record, and more importantly, he was able to make it a cornerstone of the mission’s restoration, from installing a new roof to touching up the colorful wall ornamentation.

On the way up the aisle, between the Stations of the Cross, we find the mission’s namesake, San Juan Capistrano, originally known as Giovanni da Capistrano of Italy, a 15th-century theologian famous for going into battle armed with only a cross and a flag. Ballsy. Actually, even this painting has some crazy history behind it, having been lost for years until it turned up in a flea market in Mexico, where it was bought and returned to the mission. What were the odds?

But the obvious centerpiece of the chapel is the 400-year-old retablo, a stunning Baroque altar of gilded Spanish cedar that was shipped over from Barcelona in nearly 400 pieces, then reassembled here, requiring that O’Sullivan have the sanctuary deepened and the ceiling raised in order to accommodate it. Kind of hard to quibble with the end result, though.

One other noteworthy feature of the Serra Chapel that I’ll mention: the Peregrine Shrine, dedicated to St. Peregrinus, patron of cancer patients and, more recently, AIDS patients, where worshipers can come light a votive and add their prayers to a book. I wouldn’t normally do this, but with a couple of people I know dealing with ailments at the moment, I couldn’t very well not make an entry of my own. Hopefully Peregrinus can make out my paw-writing—I do the best I can without thumbs, you know?

Then right outside the chapel is the campo santo, the mission’s cemetery, where some 2,000+ people are buried, including the native converts who died in the Stone Church’s collapse as well as Father O’Sullivan himself, who was the last person to be interred here. Rest well, Padre; your work continues, with your mission still standing and still beautiful.

I also swung through the quadrangle, where many of the rooms are on display as recreations of their original functions—kitchens, pantries, workrooms, or in this case, soldiers’ barracks. Probably most notably, the soldiers stationed here had to fend off an attack from Hipólito de Bouchard, “California’s only pirate”...and lost. To be fair, they were outnumbered four to one, but I guess we should just be happy Bouchard’s men left the place standing at all.

Fun aside: You know how historically, people tended to be shorter than they are today? Look at this shrimpy little doorway—for reference, I’m 1’2”, including the ears.

I also stopped by the California Missions Resource Studio, AKA the kids’ room. Among other things, they have a display of the cattle brands for all twenty-one California missions, which I immediately jumped on—might as well add to my rubbings collection, right? Although instead of Capistrano’s brand, I chose the one that was closest to my initial, which belonged to Mission San Gabriel Arcángel. A future stop? We shall see.

All the while, though, I kept one eye skyward whenever we were outside, always looking for swallows. No such luck—birds, I saw, but crows are what I specifically heard. Big deal. I can hear those at home any given day!

So for lack of any other avian payoff, I went ahead and stopped by the gift shop, where I...bought a swallow charm. Yeah, it’s not remotely the same. Better luck next year?

Of course, that’s all the more reason to come the day of the festival—even if I don’t see a single swallow, at least I can still spend the afternoon eating my weight in churros. So I suppose I’d best get started on that; never know when the vendors might start running low on cinnamon sugar, right?

Three missions down, eighteen to go! Uh, eventually.

Temple run

Who says nothing good comes of reality TV? On last season’s premiere of The Amazing Race, the contestants started out at Hsi Lai Temple in the foothills of Hacienda Heights, and I thought, “Rob and I should go there to close out the Year of the Rabbit.” So: cue the dramatic opening shot!

And in fact, Hsi Lai—pronounced she lye, which translates to “Coming West”—does hold a large Chinese New Year’s celebration, but with my ears still ringing slightly from last year’s festivities, I thought I’d play it safe and wait for a quieter day, especially since parking’s a bit limited. And crowded further by these statues of mini-monks demonstrating their calisthenics and inviting the visitor to join in.

I’ll spare you those photos. Rabbit anatomy makes some things...awkward.

Anyway, the temple, which opened in 1988, sits on a fifteen-acre lot in the shape of a bodhi leaf and is one of the largest Buddhist monasteries in the Western Hemisphere. As an American branch of the Fo Guang Shan order, it’s dedicated to spreading Humanistic Buddhism, which seeks to unify the teachings of the eight Mahāyāna schools in China with a particular emphasis on service and outreach that’s codified in its mottoes:

Give confidence to others.
Give hope to others.
Give joy to others.
Make things convenient for others.

Sounds welcoming. Let’s see what lies beyond the big gateway, shall we?

Hsi Lai is as much a cultural center as a working monastery, with classrooms, an art gallery, an auditorium, and a dining hall to accommodate the community events and conferences it hosts, but since I’m here specifically for the temple, let’s go straight to the main entrance in the Bodhisattva Hall. The architecture is a blend of Ming and Qing styles, with the outer shrine commanded by statues of several bodhisattvas—beings who’ve attained enlightenment and transcended mortal suffering through love and compassion—and further embellished with the text from the Diamond Sutra in gilded characters up and down the walls. A cheat sheet for supplicants right in plain sight—nice!

Outside the shrine, some people stopped to light an incense stick under the watchful gaze of deified general Guan Yu, AKA Chien Lan Bodhisattva. I followed suit, as a personal homage to the people we’ve lost in the last year. I didn’t linger long since smoke in the fur is a bad thing, but at my size it’s still an easier gesture of remembrance than pouring out a 40.

And then beyond the main entrance is this statue of Venerable Master Hsing Yun, founder of both Hsi Lai and—way back in 1967—the Fo Guang Shan order as a whole. Seemed a good time to pay my respects, as not only did he make this place happen, he’s recovering from a stroke he suffered this last December. A Buddhist master isn’t above accepting the well-wishes of a rabbit, right?

Outside of the shrines themselves, the most striking parts of the temple’s public areas are the two enclosed gardens set just off of the central courtyard. On one side is the Arhat Garden, populated with statues of Buddha’s first eighteen disciples. Gotta love the rabbits that hang out with them, but the geographically incongruous pink flamingos must be a reference to Buddhism’s roots in India rather than China. Or maybe the Arhats have a double-wide out back. I suppose it could be both.

Also, if you look closely at the rose-covered arch on the right side, you’ll see a small bell hanging from the center. The goal is to hit it with coins: One hit brings you good merit; the second earns you wisdom; the third means your wish comes true. I didn’t do so hot—not a single hit—but it’s hard to do when Rob only had 39 cents on him. Stellar planning, Rob; now go find a change machine.

Forty dollars in wasted donated quarters later, we swung by the Avalokiteśvara Garden, where Guanyin, bodhisattva of compassion, holds court with the Four Guardian Kings, the four Dragon Kings of the Seas, and various attendants. It’s very tranquil, but unfortunately, there’s no interactive component to this one. Which is a shame, because suddenly I’m in the mood for an Asian-themed miniature golf course.

But the headliner is, of course, the Main Shrine. By the time we finished with the guided tour and had a little lesson in basic meditation—it’s all in the breathing—the clouds had blown off, so here it is without my big head obstructing the view. See that circle up on the left side of the colonnade, just above the white railing and to the right of the flag?

That would be the ginormous temple drum, suspended from the ceiling like a massive ōdaiko. And then at the opposite end is...

...the equally large temple bell. Apparently, both are loud enough to resonate into the valley below, but luckily for this rabbit’s ears, they’re not generally used because of the residential areas directly beneath the monastery. Lucky me!

Also in front of the Main Shrine is this giant censer, giving people another opportunity to light a stick of incense before heading inside. Good thing I stopped to do one out front—I don’t see a stepladder, and I can’t imagine that nun over there would look kindly on my grappling hook.

Sadly, they don’t allow visitors to take photos inside the Main Shrine, so I’ll try to describe it as best as I can. It’s a huge single room about two stories high, with rows of floor cushions for worshipers and walls that are set with more than 10,000 small alcoves, each measuring only a few inches and holding a miniature Buddha statue within. But the stunning centerpieces of the shrine are the Triple Precious Buddhas, three bigger-than-life statues of the Buddhist triad housed in alcoves that are studded with more tiny Buddhas and flanked by a pair of large illuminated stupas with still more miniat...

Okay, you know what? I went to the gift shop and found a workaround. It looks like this.

Back outside, we took a stroll along the upper level, watching the devotees making their rounds and finding more monk statues, including this one that appears to be reading a sutra to a hare and a tortoise. Points for trying, little guy, but I don’t know if even Buddha himself could put an end to the age-old racial strife between my people and the accursed shellbacks.

Then at the far end of the upper level, we paused to take in the view of the city below. For a moment, looking over the temple rooftops almost made me believe I actually was in China, especially since China has McDonald’s and Starbucks too. But then I noticed the TV dish on a lower level, and that brought me back to reality. Why would people here need basic cable? Well, I suppose Real Housewives would remind anyone of his ascetic vows.

I kid, of course. The Buddhists I know are more into Breaking Bad.

But now with the sun setting and our restaurant reservations on the horizon, it was time to head out, though first we made sure to spoil our dinner with some hong dou bing cakes, made to order right on the griddle downstairs. Three custard-filleds to go, please!

And as Rob and I exited the Bodhisattva Hall, I dropped a dollar in the kitty for some “dharma words”: “Consideration of others enlarges your world. Detachment from desires enhances your spirit.” Huh. How will I become a bunnisattva if that doesn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know?

Oh well, I’d be a poor Buddhist anyway—I like having stuff too much to renounce any of it, so the only nirvana I’ll be attaining is Nevermind. Better luck next incarnation?