Beijing Adventure - Part 1

So... it has been a week in Beijing, and I had my first full day outing today. What can I say? Beijing is a tourist's choice... Shanghai is a worker's choice. In general, Shanghai is just so much more of a "liveable" city, you just won't miss home as much in Shanghai as alot of what it has reminds you of Singapore... Beijing on the other hand, is like a blast from the past... and definitely not Singapore's pass.

My sightseeing actually started on our first day at work. My client's office is located just 100m from a popular tourist attraction...

Yonghegong
Hmmm... as far as my knowledge of this place goes, it used to be the residence of Emperor Qianlong whilst he was still a prince. Later on, it got converted to a lamasery, and is currently supposed to be the oldest and most well preserved lamasery in China. Please do not question me on the facts though, I am just repeating stuff that I have heard.

Would have loved to post pretty pictures of the place... but unfortunately, was not quite comfortable taking pictures of all the million and one dieties that were in the lamasery. But a few pics that I managed to take:

That's how big the area is... and there are dieties at every gate. My colleague, who is a buddhist stopped to offer incense at every gate... what did I do? I took pictures of her doing so :)

Almost every part of this lamasery looks the same (I find out later that almost every olden architecture looks the same)... what differs are the dieties residing within these structures (99% of whom I cannot recognise). And the "highlight" of this attraction, a really huge buddha statue that made it to the Guiness book of records.

So... that was a good lunch break... and for a moment I felt like I was a tourist...