Summer Palace And Lama Temple
Posted by Scott Calderon on Sunday, August 22, 2010
I have been sick with a Chinese cold and in bed for the last 2 days and I needed to get out today. 48 hours of Chinese language television of which I have not understood one word so far. At least they have a sports channel and with sports you don't need the commentors to understand what is going on. So I have been watching the 2010 Youth Olympic Games in Singapore. Well today I woke up feeling better and it was my last day to explore Beijing before moving on to Xi'an (where the Terracota Warriors are located). First I went to the Summer Palace.
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It is a huge park filled with endless ponds and lily pads. Honestly it was beautiful, but quite boring. It all looked the same. Each hill I went over there was another pond. Each turn I went around there was another identical pond. I imagine long ago it was a great place to relax during the summer hence the name Summer Palace, but as a tourist attraction it can easily be missed without worries. Maybe if I had gotten the audio tour headset it would have been better, but I doubt it. So after that I went to the Yonghegong Lama Temple. It is a very traditional Buddhist temple found in the city. It was not huge or anything extraordinary, but it was a nice temple.
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Outside the temple there were many little shops selling incense to take inside the temple to give as offerings to the gods. Many people were not only giving offerings, but also praying to the Buddhas that were inside.
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I took a picture of this stone lion because I thought it looked cool. If you look under its paw it is holding down a smaller lion. These are pretty common statues to come across in China. I have seen them almost everywhere I have gone.
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Well tomorrow I leave for Xi'an, which is towards central China. I am going there mainly to see the Terracota Warriors. I will be taking an overnight train, but I have a seat for this one so it should not be a problem. In fact I have already booked the rest of my train tickets in China and made sure I got seats for all of them. The way it works here is they open up the sell of train tickets 9 days before the train leaves and it is first come first serve. So the earlier you buy your tickets the better, but it can't be earlier than 9 days ahead of time.
It is a huge park filled with endless ponds and lily pads. Honestly it was beautiful, but quite boring. It all looked the same. Each hill I went over there was another pond. Each turn I went around there was another identical pond. I imagine long ago it was a great place to relax during the summer hence the name Summer Palace, but as a tourist attraction it can easily be missed without worries. Maybe if I had gotten the audio tour headset it would have been better, but I doubt it. So after that I went to the Yonghegong Lama Temple. It is a very traditional Buddhist temple found in the city. It was not huge or anything extraordinary, but it was a nice temple.
Outside the temple there were many little shops selling incense to take inside the temple to give as offerings to the gods. Many people were not only giving offerings, but also praying to the Buddhas that were inside.
I took a picture of this stone lion because I thought it looked cool. If you look under its paw it is holding down a smaller lion. These are pretty common statues to come across in China. I have seen them almost everywhere I have gone.
Well tomorrow I leave for Xi'an, which is towards central China. I am going there mainly to see the Terracota Warriors. I will be taking an overnight train, but I have a seat for this one so it should not be a problem. In fact I have already booked the rest of my train tickets in China and made sure I got seats for all of them. The way it works here is they open up the sell of train tickets 9 days before the train leaves and it is first come first serve. So the earlier you buy your tickets the better, but it can't be earlier than 9 days ahead of time.