Yonghegong Lama Temple - Incredible!!

One of my family friends, Tiana Kamen, was in town for a few days in Beijing so Jimmy Hu, my new best friend, took us to this place. Jimmy is actually Tiana's family friend, but is soon becoming one of my good friends. He is a local who went to Beijing University where I'll be studying and lives near where I am studying for the summer. Jimmy owns an advertisement company and drives everywhere. He has taken me out a few times to eat and meat his friends (he is actually helping me store my luggage while I go to Beijing). Bottom line, Jimmy is amazing. Jimmy took Tiana and her friend and I to this temple. It is a must see! Count Yin Zhen used to live here until he became emperor Yongzheng and moved to the Forbidden City. His home became the Yonghe Palace, but in 1744 it was converted to a Lama Temple for Mongolian and Tibetan monks. Today, it is known as one of the most famous Tibetan Buddhist complexes outside of Tibet. Many of the sculptures are covered in drapes - to me it just looked like decoration but Tiana (who has been to Tibet and seen similar statues there) told me that the statues are actually covered because they portray sex or murder scenes, so the Chinese cover those sections with drapes. Funny huh, censorship is still around. The Lama temple has many halls with statues which you can walk around and see. The complex is beautiful: the decorations, the incense, the praying, the spirituality of the place. This temple also has the tallest Maitreya Buddha statue carved from a single block of sandalwood (there is a Guinness Book of World Records plaque outside the hall). If anybody comes to visit me in Beijing, I will take them here because the architecture, the statues, the buildings are all so beautiful. Thank you Jimmy for taking us here!