Lama Temple day

Today Kiah, our friend Pooja and I went to lunch near the Lama Temple and then we spent the afternoon walking around the Temple. Pooja and Ankit are visiting this week from Seattle. Mark and Ankit work together at Amazon and are good friends. Pooja is Ankit’s fiance’ and we met her about 2 yrs ago. They are getting married this August in Toronto and I’m so sad we are missing it. Three years ago I came to Beijing with Mark and Ankit when they came for work. We were here for about 10 days. Joel and his wife Beth came as well (Joel works for Amazon) and Beth and I hung out together during the day and went site seeing while the guys were working. On one of the days, Beth and I went to the Lama Temple and I loved it. When Kiah and Pooja said they wanted to go do something today for a few hours, I thought the Temple would be perfect.

We first went to lunch at the Vineyard Cafe (a friend suggested we try it out), which is down a Hutong alley near the Temple. It had a wide variety of Western foods and it the atmosphere was really nice. We had a yummy lunch, sat and talked for a while and had even better desserts. One of the things I love about eating out in China is all of the drink choices there are. There are so many fruit drinks, sodas(always a favorite of mine), and much more. Both Kiah and I had a sparkling lemonade that had mint leaves in it. So tasty.

Since moving here we’ve had a few friends visit from Seattle and it’s been wonderful. Kiah coming though was the biggest blessing and it’s been so much fun having her here and showing her around.

I think Kiah’s going to be upset with me for posting this photo but it’s cute and funny. She was eating her lasagna and I wanted to take a photo of her. This was the face I got. Love the food in her teeth, hence the reason why I think she’s going to be mad I posted this one of her. Even with food in her teeth, she’s still a beauty.

I’ve never ridden in one of these but Mark has. I think the one he rode in was motorized though. A lot of people get around in these. Though it would be a great way to get around in the city, I can’t imagine how hot it would be in the summer to sit in one. I’m guessing there is no A/C?

I love walking down Hutong’s and seeing doorways like this. Kiah told me that based on how big the stones were that you had outside your doorway (like this one) told how wealthy you were.

Though I’m not a fan of photo’s of myself, I do like this one of Kiah and I. I rarely let Mark post photo’s of me and I try to stay out of photo’s that he takes (and we all know that he takes TONS). This is at the beginning of the Lama Temple. I love the walkway with all of the trees. I wish you could smell the strong aroma of incense. It smells so good there.

At the very end of the Lama Temple is this huge statue made out of one single white sandalwood tree. It’s amazing. The feet are huge and the hands are amazing. Our camera was dying and this is the last two photo’s we got before it died. Kiah took this photo. It’s hard to get a good photo to show how massive it really is.   It’s 28 meters tall and made it into the Guinness book of records. It’s quite impressive. Again the smells just add to it and I wish it came through the photo’s. I’ve always loved Sandalwood and with all the praying that’s going on by everyone that comes through here daily, the smells are intoxicating.