After my morning at the Temple of Heaven and Leandra’s morning in her cooking class we met back at the hotel to warm up and plan the rest of our day. Lama temple had been recommended to us, and given its location directly north along our metro line, we decided to stop there before dinner.

So, bundled up against the cold, we headed to the temple. In a rare case, the subway station exit signs weren’t very helpful, but it was still relatively easy to find the temple entrance. Our first step was buying a ticket, then through the standard cursory security screening.

The grounds of the temple were quite lovely, and the temple complex was massive, much bigger than expected.

Since this is a working temple there is a lot of incense, altars, and praying. We tried to keep to the edges so as to not disturb others in action.

Once we got the end we simply turned around and retraced our path. Thoroughly chilled, we hightailed it for the metro station and a well-earned beer at our first Chinese brewery.