That night after we got back to our hostel from the Temple of Heaven, we met up with Anna and Julius, a German couple that we met at the hostel 
in Xian. They partook in a culinary adventure with us as we wandered around our hutong looking for Shabu Shabu (Japanese hot pot.) We found a place, but could not read the menu or order well so we enjoyed a delicious meal that was about 
100 times more expensive than it should have been. I felt foolish, but it would have cost around the same in Korea, so I felt better knowing we didn't waste too much money. Here are pictures of the lovely gorgeous meal and our equally wonderful dinner mates.
After a 
wonderfully refreshing sleep we were back on the dusty trail looking for more adventures and sights. The next stop: The Summer 
Palace. It's quite a ways out of Beijing, so we didn't plan to see much else that day. Getting there was quite uneventful except for an awkward conversation with a Chinese ESL teacher who had no idea where Korea was. I shake my head. That's kinda like me having no fricken clue where Cuba is. Still shaking my head.Well... the Summer Palace was my favorite complex in Beijing for sure. There is a huge lake in the middle with lots of boats and bridges over it. It was really hazy when we were there, so we couldn't see much across the lake, but the structures and paintings we did see were amazing. Curtis was particularly impressed by an old car they had on display. They said it was a gift to the Dowager Empress and that it is said to be the first car in China!
Some other really cool things were the Hall of Incense and a high arch that you could see above most of the other building. The Hall of Incense had an amazing deva figure in it. I think it was called the 1000 hands immortal, but I'm not sure. I wasn't able to take a photo because it's sacred to some people and I wanted to respect that. All the painting everywhere blew me away. It was much more nature focused than some of the other temples which had more designs.
After the Summer Temple we rushed to get to the Lama Temple before it closed. I really really really wanted to see a huge Buddah inside that made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for being the largest Buddah carved of a single piece of wood. I remember searching all over for it and rushing past all of the other rooms and buddahs, but honestly, I had a mission! As I stood before it, I thought two things... what a waste of a huge gorgeous tree and why the hell did they paint it. There is just something about icons that I don't get. I do not mean any disrespect to Buddhists, they're much more environmentally friendly than any other religion. I just thought the tree itself would be more beautiful than carving it into a man- like shape.
Well... that's about it. We read a lot that evening, packed and flew out the next morning. It was a great trip and it's still pretty vivid in my mind even 3 months later.
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