Temples and Buns

After a good rest, we headed to Wangfujing for a late breakfast. On the way we went past St. Joseph's Cathedral, a genuine cathedral founded in 1655 (but rebuilt a couple of times since then). It is now a popular place to take wedding photos and we haven't been past it yet without seeing a few couples with photographers in the front courtyard. Once on the Wangfujing mall we headed to Goubuli baozi (a well-known chain) for breakfast, but decided it was too expensive and went further off the main drag for baozi (steamed buns) at a hole in the wall. Afterwards we couldn't think of anything to do, so went back to the hotel to check the internet (at least, what was accessible) and write up the last entry.


St Joseph's Cathedral in Beijing

Fully recuperated now, we headed out again, via lunch at a food court in Wangfujing, to Yonghegong (Lama Temple). After a year, surprisingly, my Beijing public transport card still worked and had some money on it, so apart from the usual crowding there weren't any problems getting there. The temple is very close to one of the exits of its eponymous subway station, but we came out the wrong one and had to weave across a busy road to get to the entrance. Once we got in, though, it was quite nice. Not too expensive for a Beijing attraction (Y25), and the ticket came with a VCD about the temple. The temple is pretty big, and is much like other Buddhist temples I've been to. One interesting feature is a 28-metre statue of Buddha inside a tower. No photos of course. It was hot and smoky from the incense burning outside, so we headed home for a rest.



Later we headed out for dinner with more friends in Beijing. We had yum cha style food (they would call it dianxin here, I think) then headed out for karaoke via the subway. On the way we met up with one of my classmates from last time in Beijing, who is now teaching Japanese there. We had to wait a bit for the karaoke place to open, which gave us a chance to catch up. Once we got in some more friends joined us, and we all had a good night.

The only problem was, we got home well after 2am, and had to leave before 6am to catch our flight to Xi'an. Somehow, we managed.