Wat Mongkolratanaram Tampa Buddhist Temple

As soon as we realized we were stranded in Tampa for more than a few days I started looking up things to do around this town.  I stumbled upon Wat Mondkolratanaram Temple.  The Yelp reviews of it said things like "unique experience" and "there's nothing like it".  My curiosity was peeked, but I didn't follow up on going here until the garage manager at Cummins printed out pages of things to do and this Buddhist Temple was among them.  He highly recommeneded it and so we went.



Here's what it is.  Every Sunday the Temple opens up to the public from 10am to 2pm.  The temple is located on the bank of a river and they set up vendors on the huge wrap around porch of one of the buildings on the compound.

There are these signs posted all over the grounds of the temple including the Meditation Garden.  

You can get various traditional Thai meals, noodle soups, desserts, juices, coffee, and more.  There are tons of tables and benches along the river where you can sit and enjoy this communal environment.  There are flowers and plants for sale and early on in the day there is usually some live music.  It gets very busy and they do run out of certain items as the day goes on.  Expect a crowd, but this is part of the charm.   We arrived on the later side, around 12:30 and the crowds were not too bad, but some of the food options were gone already.  

These are the huge vats of oil cooling down after hours of frying up sweet potato and plantains!! Yum! 

Chicken Curry with rice Vermicelli, sprouts, basil and carrots 

Fried Plantains and Sweet Potato,  

View of the River from our table.  

The best technique we discovered is to purchase your main food items and then get on the coconut custard line.  You grab a to-to box and scribble your name on it, pay and give the box back to the vendor.

You can return in 30 minutes or so and your custards will be waiting for you and you just scoop up your pre-written care package and enjoy!  

Coconut Custard.  Sweet and creamy. It's like having a nibble of Thailand in the palm of your hand.  

You are welcome to join the monks in the temple at 2pm for their service, but you'll have to leave your shoes outside!

Homesick for the Holidays

Ice Cream at the Franklin Fountain with my good friend Adam. 

I want to go home. At least several times a day, i think about all the things back home that I miss.  My friends: hitting up the Boom Room where there are always friendly faces and a welcoming microphone or driving up to El Bar and ordering a tonic with lime and being my friend’s “wing man” as i pour my own flask filled with Gin into my sober glass. I miss my favorite restaurants with Brunches that are actually worth waking up for and the coffee shops where I can order a cup of coffee and not cringe in fear of the first sip as to whether I just wasted $2 of my hard earned and quickly depleting money.  The culture: walking down broad street and seeing all of the young and hopeful artists and actors and dancers from U Arts or grimacing at all of the bearded hipsters who put way too much time into their bicycles and tattoos. And who can forget the dirty streets that make it feel like real life instead of this make believe sod planted world called Florida that I’ve been floating through.  Although, I do appreciate the sun and copious palm trees.

It’s so hard everyday not to just turn around and go back to the place that I miss and didn’t realize how much I love.  Philly has given me so many opportunities like being in short films and dancing in shows on the Schkyukill River and taught me so many lessons like what friends to trust and when to walk away from a bad situation.  I grew into myself in Philly and now, on the road, in this metal tin can that I now call “home”, which has decided to betray me and become imobile, I feel like I just graduated college again and I don’t know who I am. I’m searching for some meaning.  Freedom is a wonderful thing, but sometimes it’s pretty scary.  I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing every day.  I’m just “living my life”, but I’m not sure this is how I want to live it.  I want to work hard and make something of myself.  I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have a “job”.  I worked throughout college and after college I had 3 jobs at once and I loved it! Right now it’s so hard to keep my eye on the prize and without direction I just get lost.  My days are filled with problem solving, exercising and trying not to eat my way out of this boredom.  The road is a bit of a lonely place, it’s true.  My bond with Nick has gotten stronger than it’s ever been.  We spend so much time together, it’s a little bizarre.  Sometimes, I wish I had fallen in love with an amazing musician.  That would make this journey a bit easier, but maybe harder too.  Musicians are so unpredictable and narcissistic.  Who knows, maybe I still will fall in love with one along the way and have a riotous affair!  See?  That’s what I’m talking about!  That’s the kind of stuff I was expecting to happen.  Not getting stranded in a Cummins garage in the outskirts of Tampa with a cracked head gasket.  That’s not glamourous and exciting!  What is a leaking head gasket supposed to inspire?  

So, on this day when Jesus rose from the grave, I am far from home and the ones I love, I have found comfort in a bottle of Malbec and the familiar faces on Netflix, whom I’ve come to know very well.  ( Of course, there’s no WIFI here, so i’m watching it on my iphone. Eh, at least I have an iphone).  The wine is good and the wheat thins are flowing, so I must go, as my guitar is calling me.  Hopefully she will give me comfort on this warm spring night, in this odd southern town where I’m being held captive behind metal gates, under artificial lights.  

Brunch at Cafe Estelle was the best.