The Hare Krishnas

This afternoon EcoPaul asked if I wanted to go down to Albert Park, to have tea at the Hare Krishna temple, and then go to the beach.
So after Eco had finished work, we caught the tram down to Albert Park, and then walked to the temple. We went through a garden, to the back of the kitchen, to grab some steel trays to eat off, because Eco won't use the disposable cardboard trays.
One of the monks in the kitchen was talking on his mobile phone, so Eco yelled at him to turn it off, reasoning that it'd give everyone cancer. The monk said he wasn't going to get rid of his phone, because millions of cows are being killed every day, and he can use his phone to organise action against this. Eco asked the monk what he thought about whales being killed, and the monk said that cows are more important, because we drink the cow's milk, so the cow is like our mother. Then Eco said that whales are the cows of the sea.
We went into the prayer room, where there were statues of various forms of Krishna, paintings of Krishna's story, and a statue of Srila Prabhupada. Eco explained what some of the pictures were about.
Then we went and sat in the garden for a while. There were a few people chanting the Hare Krishna mantra, which sounded a lot like Pentecostal christians when the speak in tongues (just like the Indigo Children do when they speak Star Language).
Eco was saying stuff about how he reckons Jesus was a vegetarian. I said I didn't think he was, because a number of times he gave people fish to eat. So Eco said that that was the same as me giving people meat to eat in Credo. So I pointed out that I'm not actually a vegetarian, I just try not to eat too much meat. So Eco started yelling out to everyone, 'He's not a vegetarian! He eats meat!'
Later we went upstairs to eat. We had buckwheat, tomato, zuccini, tofu, potato, a dessert that had coconut in it, and an orange drink. When we had finished eating, we went back to the kitchen to wash our trays. I went over to the bins to get rid of my polystyrene cup. One of the monks was hosing the concrete around the bins.
I said to him, 'Is this bin one for garbage?'
He said, 'What does it look like?'
So I walked across the patch of concrete he was hosing, to put my cup in the bin.
Then he said, 'Fine, would you like to clean the concrete yourself?'
So I said, 'Sorry, I just had to get to the bin.'
He smirked and said, 'Have you ever been to a temple before?'
I said I hadn't, and he gave me a smug look. Most of the other people were very nice. But that was probably the worst conversation I've had with a religious person since I visited a certain church last year, where the pastor said that if he wasn't a Christian he'd punch me.
After that we walked down to the beach. Eco turned off someone's sprinkler system on the way.