Saturday, March 14, 2009

Yonghegong Temple and HouHai Lake































We were planning on going to Yonghegong Temple, but when we got there, it was closed, which was sad for me. Instead, we wandered around the neighborhood around the temple, which was full of shops selling religious paraphernalia. I have a close friend who is a devotee of Guan Yin, so I set out to find her a figurine I could bring back as a gift. I finally settled on this one:




She may look delicate, but she's solid brass and heavier than you'd think.

Dr. Z took me to explore around the city a bit. We ended up in a shopping district full of specialty boutiques, the buildings were old stone with grey tiled roofs, which presented an interesting contrast. As we passed one shop full of Hello Kitty products, Dr. Z informed me that initially he thought that was the sort of thing I'd be interested in. Has he met me?
We had dinner in a nice restaurant on the banks of HouHai Lake, a man-made lake. It was surrounded by lights and neon and bars and restaurants, and you could pick out at least nine different kinds of music being piped out from the buildings, or being played by buskers. My camera doesn't photograph well in the dark, but the effect of the light on the water reminded me of an Impressionist painting.

















































































































































Sometimes the translations on Chinese menus were hilarious, like the one above. I wonder what goes well with Stir-fried wikipedia?

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