Our Journey to Aeryn Elisabeth
The Lama Temple & Goodbye to Beijing
Our Journey to Aeryn Elisabeth
Lions
There were two more of these guys waiting to greet us at the entrance to the temple. One male and one female.
Incense Burning
I've been to many a hippie party in my day and I thought I've seen it all when it comes to incense but the Chinese love to burn tree trunks of incense while they pray....the smell was just incredible from the amount of sticks they were burning....Here is one of many incense cauldrons littered throughout the temple.
Its Good to be the Buddah
This was just 1 of many Buddah's lounging about in the temple. If you're a buddah you get draped in fine silks and you get food and devout worshippers...not too bad if you ask me
Two Tough Hombres
We did get a cd that gives a tour of all the statues but unfortunately you'll have to listen to my grossly inaccurate commentary.....sorry
Don't tread on me?
This statue has a couple of peasants under foot.
In the picture above the evil character is vanquished under one of the tough guys feet. There is also a contnet good character underfoot not too far away.....I guess your doomed to be stepped on in China (good or bad)
Golden Buddahs
Each of the temples had 3 buddah's each (excluding the very old temples who only had 1 very lareg buddah(
A Tale of Two Buddah's
These are two examples of the lone buddah that can be found in two separate temples.
The one on the left is the content buddah (my naming) and the one on the right is what I like to call "MEGA Buddah" since it must stand at least 40 feet tall.
"I have come for the Golden Child"
Not sure if you saw the Eddie Murphy movie but here is a drum you turn during your prayer at a lama temple
The new Olympic Stadium
On the way back to the hotel Christine let us stop to take a peek at the new stadium site.
Saying Good Bye to a New Friend
See you Christine....not to worry I'm sure D will keep in touch with you.
1 Day Away From Seeing Aeryn
On the jet to Chongqing....
I'm pretty much sure that I didn't mention this before, but when we travelled we had all kinds of star sightings. On the flight from NY to LA we flew with the actor who played Carlos on Desparate Housewives and with John Schneider who played a character on the Dukes of Hazard. We also flew out of LA with Hillary Swank who happened to be staying at the St Regis and we also noticed that Warren Buffett was in town too. I'm a big believer in letting celeb's have their space so I didn't bother them with photo ops or stuff like that....but I do happen to have a shot of Hillary Swank in one of my D photos (sorta sneaked one off ...heh heh heh)
We spent the rest of the day visiting the Lama temple and saying good bye to Christine. She was a great guide and we'll miss her. She's a great person and she was so helpful making sure we got to do all the things we needed to do in Beijing. If you ever need a guide, she's the person.....let me know and I can get you in touch with her so that she can set up your Beijing experience.