Twenty-four yeago ago, when he was told he had just six months to live, Peter Gromoff went, as he put it, "monastery shopping".
Within 24 hours, scores of Coptic churches, monasteries, shops, schools, clubs and orphanages had been plundered and burned, and Christians were attacked and threatened.
Some weekend tours are linked to folklore festivals; others feature Orthodox monasteries, shopping excursions with the chance to meet working artisans, hiking in the Rhodope Mountains, wine tasting, or visits to Roman and Thracian archaeological sites.
The camp practices ecological and cultural responsibility, and activities vary from stargazing and hiking to visiting the Labrang Monastery and shopping at the local Norlha textile workshop.
Strolling shoeless under the sloped roofs of a Buddhist monastery, Wat Xieng Thong; shopping for paper lanterns on a side street in the middle of town; drinking from a coconut with a straw while peering at the boats on the Mekong River, Mr. Obama savored a tropical afternoon that he said reminded him of his early childhood in Indonesia.
Before traveling to Shikoku, I spent some time at Koyasan, a vast compound of temples, monasteries, cemeteries, shops and tourist shelters, and probably a very different sort of mandala from the one Kukai envisioned.
The brewery is normally closed to visitors, but you can buy the monastery's produce at the shop (shop admission free).
In the afternoons we might visit a monastery or make a shopping trip to a nearby town.
The fire destroyed houses, tenements, clinics, offices, shops, monasteries and theaters, residents said.
Their encouragement to visit the countryside and monasteries instead of shopping malls gives visitors more of an opportunity to immerse themselves within, rather than simply pass through, the spirit of Buddhism.
(When I say "religious community," I mean religious community in any of its forms — from a 10-person campus prayer group to coffee shop worship to monastery to mega church to something we haven't discovered yet). For it is in religious community that some very important things happen.
