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Camo and a splendid flower arrangement
At least it's not a redneck in it, haha Yonghe Gong is only a short Metro ride from the inner city and easily found as long as you remember to turn around right after reach the street from the stairs outside the Yonghe Gong Station. We left EARLY, nearly 7am to reach the temple as soon as it opened to make the most of the day (though early is actually 4-5am in China!). There is an extensive number of shops directly outside the temple where you can buy tons of incense sticks and all manner of tributes for the various symbols inside the temple. You can basically just follow and read the pictures to follow me this entry. All the highlights of Yonghegong are listed in them.
It was a fun and interesting experience to be in such a small temple for how many people (locals and tourists) visit it and for how famous it is, containing the largest wooden stature carved out of a single tree in the world. Additionally, the strongly obscured and rather fake nature of temple guests was intriguing with one alleged religious member after another trying to outwardly show their faith by first observing how several people before him used the incense, where they
First glimpse at Yonghegong
It is literally right outside the metro station...just make sure you turn around to find it placed it, how many times the bowed, their position, etc and etc...and then tried to mimic it as best they could to satisfy some unknown entity they really didn't seem to believe in. Ted helped clue me in, ha. I apologize if the previous offends any sincerely religious readers who practice worship there, but that's just the feeling I got. Some of the offerings, especially to the Yellow Buddhist looked quite expensive.
I believe, the temple used to serve as the Emperor's son's quarters and actually hosted several promiscious and now censored Buddhist statues that instructed the Emperor's son in the art of romantic reproduction...sex. The statues are just covered in cloths. Another memorable aspect of the temple were how fervent several of the monks were, constantly quoting scripture - what first you'll probably hear and just think of as soft humming, bad singing, or simple mumbling. It's definitely a fantastic place to look deeper into the Chinese culture as long as you keep your mind open and are a bit more observant. I would say at most you could spend 2-3 hours there but 1.5 hours were enough for our group. We left the temple in search of
Houtongs (old, tiny, and somewhat historic alleys) south of Houhai Lake and certainly found some interesting roads and enjoyed trying to get lost in the paths. We almost got ran over by a bike, then a car (surprised it could fit!), and then stumbled upon one of the cheapest food markets we'd ever seen with some weird vegetables but delicious Rou Bao and Corn Cakes. The Houtoungs are as the guides say, rather maze-like, but not overly difficult to navigate.
Finding a wide street again, we followed it and were passed by some type of procession as we played on an exercise playground/recreational area with some odd but entertainingly effective workout machines. They probably thought we were crazier than your usual tourists...
Following the procession's path actually led us to Houhai Lake, which I must say was a dissapointment - partly because it was such a hazy day, but also the lake was not well-maintained and the walking path and tree line surrounding it were too simple. Additionally, very few of the restaurants were actually opened and none looked either in our price range or tasty - maybe we were just too tired. Everyone except Sam and I
Dragon Trashcans
I need some at my house now headed back to the hostel to freshen up or catch a quick nap before we went out to the Beijing Duck restaurant we had picked out.
Sam and I visited Prince Gong's Mansion in the meantime - see next blog entry.
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