Weekend Oct 21-23, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
On Friday, I traveled to the International Taoist Tai Chi Centre in Orangeville, Ontario www.taoist.org/?page_id=
215 with 3 others for the TTCS Canada Central Region Workshop. They told us this morning there were 160 participants. It was a nice weekend. I learned some tai chi and had a chance to see the centre I have been hearing about since I started tai chi a year ago.
The room I slept in. My roommate was from Kingston, Ontario.
The window in the center on the second floor was our window.
A table set up for supper in the Mirror Room.
Three Religions Temple
It was a good weekend. I hope I can go back again someday.
215 with 3 others for the TTCS Canada Central Region Workshop. They told us this morning there were 160 participants. It was a nice weekend. I learned some tai chi and had a chance to see the centre I have been hearing about since I started tai chi a year ago.
The room I slept in. My roommate was from Kingston, Ontario.
The window in the center on the second floor was our window.
A table set up for supper in the Mirror Room.
Three Religions Temple
It was a good weekend. I hope I can go back again someday.
Weekend Oct 21-23, 2011 - part two
Monday, October 24, 2011
I was asked about the food on the tai chi weekend. The food was good. When my instructor took two of us on a tour of the grounds, he pointed out that every building has a 'tea area'. Enjoying a cup of tea with others is an important of part of the Taoist Tai Chi Society. We stop for a tea break during each of the classes.
Breakfast Saturday morning was my first meal although we could have had something Friday evening after we arrived but we had stopped to eat on our way. I did not realize that the hot food comes out at 8. I was in the eating area around 7:30. I had some raisin bran (there were 3 cold cereal choices) with yogurt. There was milk or soy milk available. There were bunches of bananas hanging from 'clotheslines' around the dining area so you could help yourself any time you needed one. There was a big bowl of hard-cooked eggs.
At 8 they brought out the big pot of oatmeal. They also brought out scrambled eggs and bacon and sausage. Someone was keeping the toaster going so you could pick up a piece of toast on your way by. There were raisins and dried cranberries for the oatmeal if you wanted to add toppings. Of yes, there was a coffee pot just outside the door with a tray of 'fixings' beside it.
All the work is done by volunteers. There is a head cook (I'm not sure if he has an actual title) who works there all the time. We were expected to take our dishes back to the counter to be scraped and moved to the kitchen for washing and putting away.
After breakfast, different volunteers were busy setting the tables for lunch. Lunch the first day was chicken cooked in a tomato-based sauce. Potatoes had been cubed and cooked on trays in the ovens. They were good. The vegetables (two of our men had helped in the morning with the cubing of the vegetables.) It was a broccoli, cauliflower, red pepper - and probably something else -combination that had been steamed. Very yummy! To me, food tastes better when someone else has prepared it and besides, I was hungry. :)
There were always two pots of green tea on the dining tables. We drank from little cups with no handles. When the teapots were empty, someone would get up from the table and refill them with more hot water. You could buy bottles of water for $1 from the cooler outside the dining hall but there were no pitchers of water on the tables.
For supper there was a big bowl of coleslaw already on the table when we sat down. The servers brought us fish and chips. I can't imagine making french fries for 150+ people but that is what we had and it was good. We had fruit cocktail for dessert. The base was canned fruit cocktail but fresh fruit like apple pieces, etc. had been added. There was also banana bread with chocolate chips. The leftover banana bread was left covered up on the counter along with gluton-free honey cake for anyone who needed a bedtime snack. There were always packaged cookies available on the same counter. (My leader likes those cookies. LOL)
I forgot to mention that vegetarian meals were available. When you pre-registered, there was a place to indicate if you needed a special diet.
Sunday breakfast was the same but this time I knew about the hot food coming out at 8 so I had a cup of coffee with the others at my table while I waited.
Lunch was Chinese. Our instructor's wife had been talking about how we would have Chinese food so she was happy to finally see it. There was sticky white rice tureen and a bowl of sauced vegetable combination. There was a platter with thinly-sliced pork with a bbq-like sauce coating it. There was also steamed Chinese broccoli I had never previously tried.
I had no complaints about the food. There was enough and it was a regular times. Nothing was wasted. If you needed something between meals, you could find a fruit or a cookie with no trouble.
This is one of the offerings in the Columbarium. (The fruit is plastic.)
Breakfast Saturday morning was my first meal although we could have had something Friday evening after we arrived but we had stopped to eat on our way. I did not realize that the hot food comes out at 8. I was in the eating area around 7:30. I had some raisin bran (there were 3 cold cereal choices) with yogurt. There was milk or soy milk available. There were bunches of bananas hanging from 'clotheslines' around the dining area so you could help yourself any time you needed one. There was a big bowl of hard-cooked eggs.
At 8 they brought out the big pot of oatmeal. They also brought out scrambled eggs and bacon and sausage. Someone was keeping the toaster going so you could pick up a piece of toast on your way by. There were raisins and dried cranberries for the oatmeal if you wanted to add toppings. Of yes, there was a coffee pot just outside the door with a tray of 'fixings' beside it.
All the work is done by volunteers. There is a head cook (I'm not sure if he has an actual title) who works there all the time. We were expected to take our dishes back to the counter to be scraped and moved to the kitchen for washing and putting away.
After breakfast, different volunteers were busy setting the tables for lunch. Lunch the first day was chicken cooked in a tomato-based sauce. Potatoes had been cubed and cooked on trays in the ovens. They were good. The vegetables (two of our men had helped in the morning with the cubing of the vegetables.) It was a broccoli, cauliflower, red pepper - and probably something else -combination that had been steamed. Very yummy! To me, food tastes better when someone else has prepared it and besides, I was hungry. :)
There were always two pots of green tea on the dining tables. We drank from little cups with no handles. When the teapots were empty, someone would get up from the table and refill them with more hot water. You could buy bottles of water for $1 from the cooler outside the dining hall but there were no pitchers of water on the tables.
For supper there was a big bowl of coleslaw already on the table when we sat down. The servers brought us fish and chips. I can't imagine making french fries for 150+ people but that is what we had and it was good. We had fruit cocktail for dessert. The base was canned fruit cocktail but fresh fruit like apple pieces, etc. had been added. There was also banana bread with chocolate chips. The leftover banana bread was left covered up on the counter along with gluton-free honey cake for anyone who needed a bedtime snack. There were always packaged cookies available on the same counter. (My leader likes those cookies. LOL)
I forgot to mention that vegetarian meals were available. When you pre-registered, there was a place to indicate if you needed a special diet.
Sunday breakfast was the same but this time I knew about the hot food coming out at 8 so I had a cup of coffee with the others at my table while I waited.
Lunch was Chinese. Our instructor's wife had been talking about how we would have Chinese food so she was happy to finally see it. There was sticky white rice tureen and a bowl of sauced vegetable combination. There was a platter with thinly-sliced pork with a bbq-like sauce coating it. There was also steamed Chinese broccoli I had never previously tried.
I had no complaints about the food. There was enough and it was a regular times. Nothing was wasted. If you needed something between meals, you could find a fruit or a cookie with no trouble.
This is one of the offerings in the Columbarium. (The fruit is plastic.)
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