A big rainstorm approching the Potala in the late afternoon,with a rainbow appearing..Little remains of the original Potala Palace of the seventh century, built as a place for meditation by King Songtsen Gampo on the occasion of his marriage to Princess Wencheng of the Tang Court. Standing atop the Red Hill in Lhasa, the current structure dates from the 17th century; it was rebuilt by the 5th Dalai Lama and became the Winter Palace of the Dalai Lamas from that time. The 13-story building of 1,000 rooms can be seen from many miles away...The Potala is divided into two sections--an outer section, the White Palace, and an inner section, the Red Palace, the latter containing the temples and reliquary tombs of the Dalai Lamas. The entire building is a structure of stone and timber. At a height of 117 meters, the Potala was the world's tallest building until 20th-century architects designed cityscapes of new buildings that far surpassed the Potala in height--but not in its architectural majesty..