Well, all good things must come to an end. Tomorrow at 11:40am I have a flight for Amsterdam then Bucharest. And I do not really hate the fact that I will fly for almost 19 hours (huge layover in Amsterdam) as much as the fact that I have to leave this beautiful country. But before leaving, I did have to visit a few more areas today. As there are so many nice places to see I had to skip a lot of places of course.

After checking in this morning, I took the subway to Lama temple, which is the second most important Buddhist temple. It is part working temple, part museum, part tourist attraction. All parts pretty interesting for me. Even though it’s Sunday there weren’t that many tourists, which was a welcome change. Lots of people praying at the temple, so it was a nice thing to see people really using this place of religion instead visiting it as just tourists.

It is a huge place, it took me around 2 hours to visit every room. A few exhibitions were organized in the less used rooms of the temple complex, which were pretty nice. Most consisted of Buddhist statues depicting the different gods. The main halls of the temple were amazing. In the last one there was the hugest statue I have ever seen. It’s probably one of the larger Buddha statues in China, and as I am unaccustomed to these kind of statues it was really impressive. Also the sound of turning praying wheels combined with the over-present smell of burning incense was a very interesting experience.

After spending some time at this temple complex I took a stroll in the nearby hutong. Hutongs are old Chinese streets in Beijing, still keeping their original charm. One of the more well-known hutongs in Beijing is situated right next of the Lama temple so I could not skip this. I saw people playing cards and other (unknown) games, cooking, eating, and so on. I found also a pretty good drink – glasses with yogurt and honey. Delicious.

Even later I took a stroll on Wangfujing road – I arrived there because I took subway home, but was not really in the mood for packing. Si I went on the most famous shopping street in Beijing. I found a lot of little place to eat, mostly foodstalls or carts. Of course, all evening I abused bubble tea. I have developed a way of communicating which kind I want to the woman preparing it. As the menu is Chinese only, and she doesn’t speak any English, a pointing system had to be devised. Otherwise I would drink the same kind every time.

Later on I returned to the hostel – and started to process some photos and post a few articles on the blog. However, now I have to go pack as I have no more excuses. And tomorrow at around 9am I have to leave to the airport.

Going home.

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