IMHO In My Humble Opinion

Our first stop this morning was to Drepung Monastery, which is about 10 miles outside of Lhasa and at one point was the largest Buddhist Monastery in the world. (There used to be around 10000 monks living there, but now there are only around 700.) The view from the monastery is incredible, since it's built on the side of a mountain, and if I lived there I'm sure I would be admiring the view like this:
Monk at Drepung Monastery

Our next stop was at a Tibetan carpet shop. It was pretty cool to see how they made the carpets by hand, especially since I've got some back home. The interior of the shop reminded me of shopping for rugs back when I was decorating my apartment in New York, although with rugs only in Tibetan styles that I don't like all that much. Still, they were beautiful, and I admire the work and craftsmanship that goes into them.

Just outside the shop was a wall full of prayer wheels:Prayer Wheels

Tibetan Buddhists believe that spinning the prayer wheels clockwise will send prayers up to heaven, and they walk along the wall spinning the wheels so they can send many prayers up.

Our next stop was at the Jokhang Temple. It's the first Buddhist temple built in Tibet, and has the most venerated Buddha statue in all of China. Unfortunately, pictures aren't allowed in the temple, so I can't share that image. The view from the roof is a nice view of Lhasa from the middle of town (although I don't like how my pictures turned out.)

After spending some time at the temple, we were let loose at Barkhor Square, just outside the temple. It's the site of a huge street market:
Market off of Barkour Square

I'm amazed that there are so many stalls selling so many of the same things and they all stay in business, but if you look closely you can occasionally find unique stalls. One stall outside of a dental shop displayed golden teeth; one member of our tour said that he had seen them performing dental work through the window yesterday.

After dinner, a group of us went out for a Tibetan foot massage. Only the first 45 minutes concentrated on the feet; the rest covered the rest of the body. We got split up into two rooms, the men in one room and the women next door. The women massaging us were adamant that we drink the green tea they had provided, and the one massaging me eventually got to just hitting my feet when she had decided I hadn't been drinking enough tea.

After the massage a group of us went out to a Tibetan folk music bar. I don't think a photograph would have done it justice even if I had my camera with me, but hanging out over a couple of beers, listening to Tibetan folk music while chatting with friends from the tour is one of those memories that's going to stick with me for a very long time.