Friday night, we were invited to attend a Chinese punk rock concert. While I don't regret my decision to attend (it was very interesting), I regret not bringing a spare set of lungs. Or pure oxygen to breathe. While I haven't had much problem with cigarette smoke so far in Beijing, the concert killed me (and probably parts of my lung in a more literal sense). EVERYONE was smoking and there was no ventilation inside the concert hall/back room. It was terrible. My hair still absolutely reeks of cigarette smoke, and my clothes will probably be the same way for weeks to come. So gross....
It was a fun concert though. We were able to see 3 bands in the time span we were there, and the last band was by far the best. We all decided the lead singer was trying to be a Chinese McJagger. I have a video of them, but for some reason I can't upload it at this time. I'll be sure to post it when my internet decides to cooperate again....
Today (Saturday), we were shown a Lama temple in Beijing. It was AMAZING. The temple was an old palace from the beginning of the Qing dynasty that was converted later on. It was beautiful, and that was aided by the fact that today we had a Blue Sky Day. These normally happen around once every 14 days or so in the Summer, but pollution has been particularly bad recently, and we haven't had a Blue Sky Day in quite a while. I discovered that Beijing is actually a really, really beautiful city when the sun is shining. It's hot, but it is a truly a city best seen in natural light.
The view from my room when I woke up this morning. I was so surprised!
In the background, you can see a mountain range. I've heard that it exists, but today was the first day I could see it clearly.
On the way to the Lama temple, we drove near the Olympic Park. The Bird's Nest is such a cool building!
Entrance to the Lama Temple. Everything is that much more beautiful with blue skies!
One of the buildings inside.
This was the first spot within the temple were incense could be burnt. Inside each of the proceeding buildings were large Buddha's, or other Gods. You could take your incense to the building that held the God you wished to pray for. In Chinese Buddism (and possibly other versions, I'm not sure) the incense are burned so that your prayers can reach heaven, and God can hear them. Without the smoke from the incense, God is unable to hear your prayers.
I FINALLY learned what these signify. I knew from previous knowledge that the two lions outside an entrance were meant to protect whatever they are outside. However, I never understood why one lion had a baby lion under their paw, and the other had a ball. The one with the baby lion is for females. It protects women and aids in fertility. The lion with the ball under it's foot is for males. It signifies that the men will have power.
The outside of one of the prayer buildings. We were expressly forbidden from taking photos inside. This building housed the god of Pharmacy, the god of Longevity and the god of Medicine.
This was actually a really neat part of the temple. It was something similar to a wishing well. People would throw coins at the statue, and if you hit the roof part of the structure, you would receive good luck. I didn't even make it to the structure... whoops.
The beautiful color and detail gets me every time I see these buildings.
This statue represents the world. If you look very closely, there are mountains and waves up the bottom part. People also placed money around this statue.
Another layer of temples.
I got crafty and stood outside the building to get one photo. This particular temple was one of my favorites. It had a giant dragon carved into the ceiling (you obviously can't see it here). The buddha's differed from building to building. Some were larger than others as well, but each were devastatingly beautiful and intricate.
This building was breathtaking on the inside. It doubled as the monk's study room. There were rows of desks were each morning and evening the monks would study and meditate. Because this was (and still is) a religiously and culturally significant piece of Buddism, there are two chairs, one on each side of the building. One chair is for the Dalai Lama. The artwork in this building was unreal.
The last, and by far most breathtaking building. We were allowed to take photos inside, but it was extremely difficult for reasons you will understand shortly.
The Buddha inside this building has a Guinness World Record. It was CARVED out of a SINGLE white sandalwood tree that was 26 meters tall. If you look in the previous picture, you can see how tall the roof is compared to the other buildings at the lama temple. The Buddha went to the very top. It was HUGE.
I had to sit on the floor and lean back to even attempt to get as much of the Buddha as possible in one photo. it was amazing.
The detail was unbelievable, even more so when you remember it was carved out of a single tree. So beautiful.
After visiting the lama temple, CIEE took us on a rickshaw tour of the Hutong neighborhood in Beijing. These are some of the oldest residential buildings in Beijing and it was great to get a look at them all.
I have no idea why these were here, but it was really pretty to look at as we biked along in our tour.
More cool statues/art in the Hutong district.
After our tour, we had dinner and then we were allowed to roam the district freely. It was starting to become evening by this time, so stores were beginning to become more lively. This was my favorite store name of the ones we walked past.
KITTENS!!!!!! I was so close to bringing one back to my homestay.... They were so cute. It kills me to even look at this.
There have been a lot of strangely painted cars in Beijing, but this tops them all. A bedazzled Mercedes. Everyone that walked by was stopping to look at the unique paint job and touch the car to see if it felt different (it didn't). Also, if you look closely, the Mercedes logo on the back is jeweled out too. Somewhere, Jeremy Clarkson is either crying or laughing hysterically. I'm not sure which.
