Lhasa / 002 The Dalai Lama and his different incarnations lived in the Potala from 1649 until 1959. These days it is a museum.  Many restaurants and hotel lobbies around Tibet have a picture of the Potala on the wall. For one reason or another they are all highly stylized — with a lake or a river directly in front of building. I got a shock to see that in fact (see next picture) there is a busy road and a park in front of the fabled Potala.