Kathleen Battle's banishment from that gilded temple of operatic singing in Lincoln Center remains in effect.

It's lush and green, filled with gilded temples, monasteries, and nunneries.

He had no desire to open a gilded culinary temple, anyway.

He pointed ahead where pitched roofs and a gilded temple erupted from the hillside.

Everywhere Tremaine wandered through the vast city, with its tall white towers and extravagantly gilded temples, he saw the benevolent image of the holy monarch smiling down at him.

On each side, the eye was filled with gargantuan temples in rich stone; huge columns with their heads and feet gilded; great arches erected for military triumphs.

Listed as a tourist attraction by VisitScotland, the centre attracts visitors who come simply to see a spectacular gilded temple, stupas and gardens with statues of Bodhisattvas and Buddhas.

South of Shwedagon, in the middle of a busy intersection, lies the other end of the axis, the Sule Paya - another gilded temple that's nearly 2,000 years old.

When the soldiers came to a village, though, all possible doubt disappeared: along with the scattered stone houses stood a larger building with a wooden spire topped by a gilded dome-a temple to Phos, the Videssian god of good.

This former royal capital perches on the banks of the Mekong River, a gorgeous medley of gilded temples and pagodas, creaking wooden homes and some spruced-up vestiges of the French colonial era.