Taylors Travels continue……………

Last Saturday Ray celebrated his birthday with a group of friends at Dave’s Place, our local English Pub.

Not enough room on the cake for all the candles.

This morning we visited the Gandan Monastery, largest functional monastery in Mongolia.  Although it was a crisp cold day, the sun was shining as usual and we bundled up against the cold.

The Monastery was built between 1841 and 1912 but most of it was destroyed during the period of religious persecution by the Soviets, and many of its treasures were lost.  It has been rebuilt in recent years and new temples added.  The main temple Mejid Janraiseg (above left) is built in a mixed Chinese and Tibetan style and houses a 25.6 metre tall buddha.  The original statue was disassembled and taken in pieces to the USSR during the 1930s but a new statue was built in the 1990s with donations from Japan and Nepal. 

One of the many stupas. 

 Toya - little Mongolian girl feeding the pidgeons

Young “bandi” - student of Buddhism

Prayer bells and Khadags (prayer flags)

We saw this interesting safety hat while walkiing though one of Beijing’s many parks earlier this year.

While editing some of my pictures today I noticed something different about this horse - it has blue eyes.  

Here’s another shot from the Festival of Eurasia cavalry show,  which I processed in Photoshop with a posterized special effect.  It was an incredible display of horsemanship, while riding at full speed the horseman leaned right over, picked up the spear from the ground, regained his seat and raced away.

I’m putting the finishing touches to my gallery from that fantastic day and will have it online very soon.

I’ve been a bit of a shut-in since returning to Mongolia, so don’t have anything new to post to the blog.  While scratching through my photo files for something of interest I found this one, which was next to a moving staircase in Orient Home - Beijing’s equivalent of Home Depot.