I spent a couple hours touring Lotus Lake, this time with some friends instead of with Lee and actually going into the temples along the shore. The temples here, mostly Taoist with Buddhist mixed in, are the most brightly colored temples you'll find anywhere!

First stop was the dragon and tiger temples. It brings you good luck to walk into the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the tiger.

The views from the top were beautiful, as well as the paintings, carvings and statues in and around the temple.

There was another temple across from the Dragon and Tiger. That kind of temple you see all over the city. They are incredibly ornate, peaceful and fragrant with incense.

The bridge to the pagodas has seven corners because seven is a lucky number and also, spirits are bad at negotiating turns so it's hard for them to follow you out on the bridge.

By the way, all that green in the lake are lotus plants. They're just about done flowering but the were spectacular a month ago.

We also visited the turtle sanctuary. I don't really know what this area was except it was full of turtles including Yertle the Turtle. (If you don't know who that is, go back to your old Dr. Seuss books.)