Beijing: Lama Temple, Confucius Temple, and Foot Rub Girlfriends.

One of my favorite things to do was walk around the hutongs -  old courtyard homes that have been converted to housing for the general population. This is one of the more colorful hutong shopfronts.

The Yonghegong Lama Temple is the largest and most complete Buddhist temple outside of Tibet. It was a beautiful place and very soothing after Tienanmen Square. 

I felt uncomfortable that we were tourists while people were worshiping in their temple. Each hall (5 main halls) housed at least one very large Budda that we were told not to photograph. The worshipers seemed very devout. I liked the smell of the incense (as long as it is not in my home). Several of the shops in the hutong near this temple had Buddhist shrines. I tried to take a picture of one shrine and the shop owner yelled at me in Chinese but I knew what she was saying.

I lifted this picture of the tallest Budda, carved from a single piece of sandalwood, from the internet. We saw this at the Lama Temple. It was impressive at 18 Meters.

Confucius Temple:

Just a short walk from the Lama Temple is the Confucius Temple. I could feel that it was more of an academic temple than a spiritual place. There weren't many people there but Confucius is enjoying a resurgence in popularity in China.

There are 198 marble tablets inscribed with the names of the  scholars who reached the highest level of Confucianism. They also contain quotes from Confucius himself, "Confucius say...".

After a long day of touring I dragged Roland to a salon for a foot rub. The women really reacted to his large feet, having to drag their massage chairs way back to reach them. I made friends with these lovely women from Mongolia.

Their English was wonderful and we chatted about their world travels. They have been to Los Angeles and wanted to know why they never saw anyone walking in LA. The sidewalks are busy in Beijing! They invited us to stay with them in Mongolia. I'm ready to go today.

The view looking down from our hotel room (see the group doing tai chi?):

The view looking out from our hotel room.: We didn't see blue sky once - it is too polluted.