Lama Temple Snow Day

Lama Temple, aka Yong He Gong is one of the big attractions I hadn't seen yet in Beijing so I thought I should go there on the only day this year that it snowed and try to get some good snow pictures. Well there wasn't a lot of snow because there has been a serious drought and it was snow brought on by the gov't shooting silver nitrate or watever into the clouds to try and cause some precip. I've been to a ton of temple/palaces/what have you but again i was pleasantly surprised at the different things Beijing has to offer. Lama Temple is a Tibetan temple

incense box


there was some procession going by. Looks like an Abbott or something was passing through. they have abbots in buddhism right?

a panorama of the interior area


first time i've seen a connecting bridge on higher stories

is this supposed to be a lotus flower or something? lots of crazy stuff i've never seen before. probably because it's a tibetian temple


this was amazing. so tight in there you can't even get a shot of the whole thing unless you have a fisheye lens. its a 18 meter high buddah statue carved from 1 piece of wood! wikipedia is one of my best friends. I can't imagine what it is like to stand in front of one of the biggest buddah statues in the world which this is not even close. This one is cool becaues it is crammed in this little space, like the giant in the room


and i've gotta say lama temple is one of the best kept places i've been too. fresh or fresh looking coats of paint on everything. look at this statue glisten! Also it is really freaky like most of the statues in there because it has these white static eyes that really peer out of the darkens into space and it feels like they are gonna suddenly shift down and look at you and you will be crushed like the little unworthy bug that you are. When i was little i saw an episode of the live action spiderman show where a multi armed indian god came to life and it freaked me out so i am still freaked out by the female multi armed god.

like these things? what is going on with these? could they be freakier! I bet the somehow could!

prayer wheels previously seen in Li Jiang in yunnan province.

this looks kind of like one of those happy lucky fat buddahs. but i don't know if it is. maybe a cousin or something that is not as fat and runs a couple times a week. Anyway after I thought I had gotten my fill of Chinese temples and palaces Yong He Gong comes and slaps me with a giant 18 meter buddah hand. A must see in Beijing! I'm taking the parents there.