A night at Manjushri Hill

Yesterday, around 10 p.m., I followed Pastor Susan to Kechara Forest Retreat (KFR) . I believe I have posted about KFR in this blog prior to this blog post. So, I shall explain what KFR is in brief. KFR is a retreat in the forest and people may come here to do prayers and meditate when it is completed. There will also be a vegetarian restaurant (Yum!).

Since the last time I have written about KFR, a lot of progress has been achieved. There is now container cabins instead of tents for the workers to stay. The Enchanted Forest, which will be Rinpoche's residence, has been properly erected with a lovely garden. Manjushri Hill now has an office building in which the blog team and Rinpoche's writers will work.

Where was I? Ah yes, I followed Pastor Susan to KFR. On the way, we had an Egg McMuffin. I was surprised that the menu with the Egg McMuffin without the chicken roll still existed and was pretty happy.

When we arrived in Kechara Forest Retreat, the amount of difference shocked me (In a good way) a bit. The land looked like a combination of both man-made and natural. It was exceptionally beautiful.

So, I helped Pastor Susan carry some dog food that she brought from KL to KFR into Cucu's (Our groundskeeper's wife) residence. Pastor Susan was picking up a poor doggie who was very badly injured. Part of his face was missing as one of the more aggressive dogs assaulted him. The wound was unnoticed due to his fur covering the wound. When the wound was noticed, maggots had already started growing. He smelt like a decaying corpse. So, Pastor Susan brought him back to KL for immediate medical care.

After that, I went up to Manjushri Hill. After placing down my belongings on a randomly chosen desk, I followed Sarah to the garden behind the Enchanted Forest Ladrang Building. We picked up branches and leaves while wearing rubber gloves. My hands were literally soaked in sweat and after removing the gloves, they dripped my sweat. It was disgusting but due to the work completed it was satisfying.

During Lunchtime, Sarah and I went to this coffee shop in Bentong. I have forgotten the name of the coffee shop. I ordered a plate of fried rice and Sarah ordered some Hokkien Mee (The black sauce one). My knowledge of the Chinese language has been proven to be quite useful as the owners of the store were not really good with english. The food was not bad but it required a little more saltiness. So, I added some soya sauce.

After our little lunch break, we continued to pick up leaves and branches and we started sweeping the remaining leaves and wood chips on the path. It started to drizzle a bit. A few drops later, the rain stopped. We resumed work again. Then, lighting streaked across the sky and thunder rumbled amongst the clouds. Then, it started to pour. Everyone had to stop work and return to their respective workplaces.

So, Sarah and I went back up Manjushri Hill. I relocated myself to a table near Jean Mei of the Blog Team who gave me my assignments. Just when I was about to complete my assignments, everyone went out for dinner.

I, being the "Dory" I am, forgotten the name of the restaurant but I remember it was next to a pub and opposite a small-scale karaoke place. The food was not bad in comparison to our usual dinner place, "Mr. Crocodile". The food was extremely refreshing after a long hard day of work under the sun.

After dinner, which roughly ended at 10 o'clock, we returned to Manjushri Hill. I completed my assignments and went reading around the internet and tweeting some random quotes I thought up.

Around 12 p.m., I was extremely tired so I went to sleep in the boy's dorm in Manjushri Hill. I had to unfortunately inconvenience an already-sleeping Swee Keong as I had to sleep at the bottom bunk as I couldn't climb to the top and I was afraid I might kill the person below me in the event the bed collapses from my weight.

I fell asleep relatively fast. I woke up extremely early despite there being no alarm clock other than the snores of the others which I was fine with. I probably snored the loudest. LOL.

I woke up at 8 a.m. and I found my mother, another person who wakes up late when at home, at her desk working. I guess the surrounding nature gives us a natural alarm clock. So, I settled down with some cup noodles after popping my TRA pills (I will write a blog post about that soon) and leisurely browsed the Internet for a bit and doing some social media promotion.

When Jean Mei woke up, she gave me my next assignment which I completed a few hours prior to writing this blog post as I was completing other various commitments.

In conclusion, Manjusri Hill is lovely and people must come and see when KFR is fully built and lend a helping hand in terms of funds or strength to ensure the steadfast progress!