Buddha

After Dandelion today, we went to a special needs school here in Beijing for a tour. Then I abandoned the tour for the second day in a row to go off and do more sightseeing instead of shopping. Yesterday we went up this park with five pagodas leading to the top, which had great views of the Forbidden City from above. Then we rode up to the Olympic site and saw the Birds Nest and the Water Cube, which were completely awesome.

Today we went to the Lama Temple-- it's a lamasery. I love that word. They had a giant Buddha statue that's carved from one piece of sandlewood. Look it up-- I couldn't take pictures-- it's 55 ft tall! We saw one we thought was the big Buddha, but no, behind it, there was a hall with an even bigger one. Then we tried to go to the Confucian Temple, but it closed before we got there. We peeked through the cracks in the door to take a picture of the statue of Confucius. We had lunch in some Chinese version of an AuBon Pain. I had sweet potato fries- yum!

Hope everyone back home is well. I love reading you comments, and sharing them with others on the tour. Two more days and then we have to go home. It's gone by so fast!