VINCENNES to GREET the GREAT GREEN JADE BUDDAH

LIZ SAYS: We'd been to Bois des Vincennes before as foot tourists. We'd entered at the Parc Floral entrance and seen the undoubtably gorgeous Parc Floral and it's giant lilly pads and rolling hillocks of picnic worthy space. This time we are bike riders and we are going to ride all the way out on our bikes, we were going to explore the park on our bikes. Oh, yeah! Hardcore! Hellbent for bike trail, we boldly started in our beloved 5th and boldly rode through the Bastille, briefly stopping for a coke and water and further discussions of where we were actually going to go. After a brief discussion about who was going to go first and take the responsibility for wrong turns and getting lost, Dick led on. From this whole new perspective, we entered the more natural version of a French Park. Huge, gorgeous, with gtrimmed trees and oh, a manmade mountain, lagoon, grotto and a pergola under the draping mosses of the exposed end of the of the whole bridge covered folly. Geez, this place is incredible. The Parc Floral side alone would seem like more garden that one can take on in one day. ( I wrote about that last year, if you want to look back.) As we crossed the bridge, I noticed a bright pink poster in the opposite direction. I checked it out, but had no idea what it meant. So we just followed the line of pink signs inside a fence. Whoa, so cosmopolitan sweet. It was like an entire village of Buddhists with food, chairs and music. Silver rimmed Red candles were arranged on the ground in a seemingly symbolic, or at least very attractive manner. There was a building and a tent. In the building there was a gold painted Buddha, pillows fruit and flowers. In the tent was a giant dark green Buddha. It was very impressive with it's wintergreen presence. We decided to take them up on their offer for lunch. It had to be bought with tickets and we had not much of an idea of what we were buying, but the whole scene was so rich, we just wanted to bask in it a little longer. Our food was good, interesting and pretty bready. I had to have a copy of the poster, so I could never forget welcoming the great jade Buddha to Paris.