The subway station is actually directly underneath the Lama Temple. The Lama Temple is, well, a temple. By this point in the week, Dan and I had pretty much had our fill of red buildings with gold, blue, and green detail, feng shui aligned hallways, grand gate entrances, Buddha statues, and souvenir shops.

Actually, the Lama Temple does have a few distinctive features. First, it is still a working monastery. We saw several monks walking around or spending time in the various halls. Also, people come here to worship. Outside each building people would burn several long sticks of incense. There were special burners set up for incense since it is no longer allowed inside the temple buildings. The entire site reeked of the smell. We knew we were in the right spot as soon as we surfaced from the subway station.

There are also several prayer wheels scattered throughout the temple grounds. People would spin this to a particular prayer. The other feature of note is that along the main walkway through the site, the temples and the Buddha statues increase in size. We lost count and thought we were at the largest one. Then we walked through that temple and found ourselves at a much larger one with an 80-foot tall Buddha statue that you could not even see all in one view. With that sight and the mild headaches we each had from the smell, we decided it was time to start wrapping things up.

Before we headed to our hotel, we had a little more shopping to do. We returned to the popular Silk Market for some souvenirs and an extra suitcase. Overall, we really did not do that much shopping, but we were given several items along the way. The market is vibrant and the sales people have a select English vocabulary including key phrases such as "What do you like?", "Just for you," and "What is your best price?" After negotiating and still paying more than we probably should have for things, we were exhausted. There was a Starbucks nearby and its comfortable setting helped gear us up for going home.

We left our hotel Monday morning. When we arrived in Beijing we noticed the interesting airport facilities, but did not take the time to really take it in. I must admit that the new international terminal at the Beijing airport is one of the most spectacular buildings I have ever been inside. This dragon-shaped building is one of the largest man-made structures in the world. It is one enormous room with a seemingly woven red ceiling supported by tall columns. Certainly an awe-inspiring welcome (and goodbye) for an incredible capital city.

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