26.02.09 Yonghegong

The Tibetan Buddhist's New Year started yesterday and today after my chinese classes and lunch I went to see the Lama Temple called Yonghegong. The temple is on the east side of Beijing but in the north just like Haidian district where I live.

The temple was really pretty and I took a bunch of pictures. The temple area was quite big and in the last center hall (the Pavilion of Ten Thousand Happinesses) there was a big Maitreya Buddha statue. There was a note saying that the statue was 18 meters tall and carved out of one piece of white sandal wood, and the statue had made it to the Guinness book of Records. It's impossible to try to explain all the things in the temple, but the architecture was amazing. Everything was so decorated and carefully planned, even the ceilings in the building were decorated and full of colors. I found a website that had some pretty good pictures on it, here's the address: http://www.kinabaloo.com/yonghegong.html
And here's also some pictures I took.

The old and new mix

Rooftops

The Front Gate