For our last day in China, we started with a tour of the Lama Temple, an elaborate complex for Tibetan Buddhism. You walk through one building, with one to three Buddha statues, only to find a courtyard and then another building behind, then the same, again and again. It’s a bit like the Twilight Zone. Finally, we arrived at the last building, which was created to house a giant Buddha, almost 60 feet tall, made from a single tree. The statue was so large that the toenail alone seemed to be almost a foot across. There seemed to be as many Chinese people lighting incense and praying as those touring.

Our next stop was to see the hutong area of Beijing. Hutong means alley or small street, so this is the old section of the city. Beijing used to be entirely hutongs, before the skyscrapers, and they have preserved one area so you can see what Beijing used to be like.

We took pedicab rides, ending up at the house of a retired 52-year-old lady. The idea was to show us a “typical” Beijing old-style hutong house. The lady was very welcoming, and was there with her sisters-in-law, who were cooking, her niece, who was doing inside-bottle painting (an amazing craft where they use a very narrow brush and paint on the inside of a bottle), and her poodle, who had yellow and orange fur ears.

The house consisted of one long room that was divided into living room and bedroom, and a small alley kitchen. It was comfortably appointed with several modern appliances, although very sparse on furniture because apparently she holds small dinners here for tourists, so needs to use one large table in the center of the room. There is no bathroom, but the public restroom is right across the street.

Our lunch was at an amazing restaurant that was renovated in the style of the feudal princes. The staff wore spectacular costumes, dressed up as concubines and eunuchs. The women wore those funny wooden shoes on narrow platforms, and very high headdresses. For some reason, Lev just couldn’t stop taking pictures of those concubines!

There were small buildings and pavilions scattered through a lovely garden with ponds. These were all small private dining areas. You definitely felt like royalty eating at this place.

We then went to the Summer Palace, where the emperor lived during half the year. There is a large man-made lake, and an equally large man-made mountain using the earth from digging the man-made lake. There are exquisite gardens and buildings, including a half-mile long corridor decorated with thousands of Chinese paintings.

We took a short ride on the lake on a private flat boat, seeing the marble boat, multiple graceful bridges, and the dragon island in the lake’s center. Next to one of the pavilions was a large projection TV screen showing sports, which seemed like quite an ironic juxtaposition to us!

Our final stop was the Olympic site where we saw from a distance the “Bird’s Nest” stadium and the water cube. They don’t let you near the site today, but we took a few photos from afar. Next to the site is an amazing building that was the hotel for the dignitaries. It is shaped like the Olympic flame, and had multiple giant TV screens that apparently showed Olympic events, but now seemed to be showing commercials.

We’re now back in the hotel getting ready for our final dinner out. We return home tomorrow, but Lev and Galina are staying for a few more days of a green-tech conference.

-- Donna