The Lama Temple (Yonghe Bong) is also conveniently situated on the metro system. You get off the metro opposite the Pearl Market and head through numerous stalls selling incense sticks, fat Buddhas, and pretty well anything else you can think of . All clues that there is a Buddhist temple nearby. The temple itself is probably most remarkable for the extraordinary size of the Buddhas. One of them at 18 metres height has a notice nearby proudly proclaiming that the Buddha has made it into the Guiness book of Records. The temple is busy with worshipers and there are monks who will say a prayer for you if you pay an appropriate sum. In one of the temples you can also see the thrones where the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama sat next to one of the giant buddhas in a visit prior to his fleeing Tibet around 1957.

In the evening we did the real tourist thing and went to see the Beijing acrobats. A cold theatre just beyond the amazing China TV building - a collosus of a building. It's difficult to describe but it is basically two tower buildings joined at the top by a third building which forms a triangular arch between them. The theatre is more modest. the show is not. It starts with the release of parrots across the roof of the theatre and follows it with a breathtaking performance of young acrobatics. Muscular boys leap in and out of rotating wheels, jump on top of each other up to about five in all. Young girls form all kinds of unbelievable shapes, leap on and off bicycles, all in traditional costume. Touristy but a must do.