All the sites of Beijing: the afternoon

After the Forbidden City we made our way to what I was super stoked about: the Olympic Stadium! We did quite a hit if extra walking as the Lonely Planet guide we were following sent us to subway stops that weren't yet open. We managed.

Olympic stadium. Summer Olympics 2008. I watched them as much as I could from South Africa where I was volunteering for that summer. I'm an Olympic junkie. I did my grade six speech on the Olympics (Miss Bokma was very excited by my topic) and watch every minute I can.

As we entered the gates, after eating the most heavenly ice cream, I looked at Teresa and said, "I feel like I'm in the presence of glory here. Do you know who all walked here before us?" I was in my happy place just like when in Barcelona last summer and when in Montreal last winter. (Now this has become another travel goal of mine: see as many Olympic stadiums as possible)

We did a lot of walking and observing and picture taking. They charge to get into both "The Nest" (the main stadium) as well as the aquatics facility so we chose to enjoy the outside.

There isn't a whole lot to tell in words, so ill use pictures again instead. I. Loved. It.

After the stadium we hit up the bell towers and drum towers. Really we just stopped by them for pictures and I haven't done much reading in them yet so I can't tell you much about them other than they're old, they face each other, they're huge and I'm glad we saw them.

Our final stop was the Lama Temple. Now if you're anything like me you'll assume this is a temple named after the Dalai Lama. Yeah, not so much. 'Lama' is not a last name it is a word referring to "spiritual leader". This temple has nothing to do with the Dalai Lama specifically. It is a lovely, intricate Buddhist temple that is a tourist attraction but is also still used by local Buddhists.

At the front of each of the temples (for the Lama Temple is a gated area with multiple temples inside) we saw multiple people bow three timed before the idols and leave unburned incense. Outside there were 'barrels' where people burned incense.

In one temple there were four golden statues, all Buddhas, holding different things. They were surrounded by humans of different colours/nationalities representing that Buddhism is a religion for all peoples of all nationalities.

In another temple there was a huge golden statue if laughing Buddha, which people also bowed to.

In yet another temple there was a Buddha that was 26 feet tall that was made out of a single, solitary piece of wood. This tree took two years to be shipped from Nepal. Then a royal worker came from the Forbidden City to carve this tree. It is now on display here, is plated in gold and is in the final temple and seemed to be the most worshipped. I confess that I sinned: we weren't supposed to take pictures but...I stole one.

After experiencing Buddhism in a real way (along with a monk who was there in his orange outfit) we called it a day after 11 hours of walking around the city. It was nearly four (we left at 5am) and we needed to eat and head to the airport to catch our flight. This was definitely a go big or go home kind of day.