Day 4 - Still in Beijing

We had another full day in Beijing. We went to another place, full of temples and Buddhas. They were melting together by then, and I couldn't remember who or what temple we were looking at. However, they were all very beautiful and amazing to contemplate, especially since most of them are so very ancient.





The human factor stole the show today. This little girl is wearing traditional head dress, but I don't know what for. I saw a few of these through out the park that surrounded the Temple we went to that morning. Also, groups of women were doing exercises in the park. I couldn't tell if they were doing a form of yoga, or just plain exercises. Some also had a sort of hackey sack they were kicking around.


Funny thing, too; through out China, I saw lots of people, little kids, teens, adults, even old grandmas! wearing g-hats like gangstas here in So Cal. Here is the cutest example I found.



Walking through the park, I heard Chinese singing. It sounded like a really fun song, so I asked Saimiya what song they were singing. "Soldiers, Army, Government," Saimiya said the words of the song went. She didn't know the song, because they don't sing these kind of things in Shanghai. She thought they were stupid for singing that stuff, but they do it all the time in Beijing, being it is the capital of the country.



Finally, we went to lunch, a traditional Chinese restaurant, with the good stuff. Yeah, baby. But being a vegetarian, I was always leery of what some stuff was, even though it was purported to be vegetarian. Saimiya took good care of me, always checking and double checking to verify it was not made of anything but vegetables or fungi. This restaurant was full and very loud! They had a snake, one that stars in a lot of movies nowadays, a light yellow boa constrictor, right in the front of the restaurant in an aquarium. Here is a photo of all the food we got for lunch. Saimiya, true to Chinese hospitality, always ordered a ton of really good food. We ate so much while we were there, but true to the idiom, half an hour after you eat Chinese food, you are hungry again.


I have to warn you, one of the best dishes I ate
looked an awful lot like Alpo. But it was so good.
I was assured over and over that it was tofu.

Can you guess which dish it is? Correct, it is the one that is on the bottom right of the photo. The brown looking stuff. All the rest of the food was delicious. The desert is in the middle of the table, and it does not taste like desert we like in America. Also, the traditional way of having a menu in China is to have it on the wall. While they gave us each a regular menu, like we have in most of our restaurants here in the states, you didn't need one. You could just look at the wall and order from there.





After lunch, we visited another temple. This one, Saimiya actually prayed to the Buddha. You had to buy incense to offer to the Buddha. Saimiya bought 9 of them, and gave 3 bundles each to Megan and I to offer to the Buddha. While praying, Saimiya would hold the incense in her folded hands, and bow three times.

After this, we were off to Xian, for the Terra Cotta soldier tomorrow! Yeah for us!