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Published: March 2nd 2007
The Temple of Heaven, founded in the first half of the 15th century, is a dignified complex of fine cult buildings set in gardens and surrounded by historic pine woods. In its overall layout and that of its individual buildings, it symbolizes the relationship between earth and heaven - the human world and God's world - which stands at the heart of Chinese cosmogony, and also the special role played by the emperors within that relationship.
This is the start of our site seeing in China. We decided on the Temple of Heaven first, for what reason we have no idea. A little apprehensive about taking the public bus, and seeing as there is no train station around the Temple of Heaven we decided to cab it from our guest house in the Wang Fu Jing area. The quick ride was only a mere 11 yuan.
The site is gorgeous. It was akin to walking through a botanical garden/Central Park with ancient temples dotted along the trails. Just to see this was a treat. To explain it would do it injustice.
One of these structures was the echoing wall. It is a circular wall. Once inside the circle, a person would stand on one side and another on the other side of the circle (both people inside the circle but on opposite sides) and you could here each other as the sound travels the curves and you hear the echoes. What baffles me about this is that some of the tourist couldn't hear each other so they decided to yell at the wall, hoping that their sound would travel the distance. Once they
were satisfied that their yells made it to the other side they seemed content and excited that it worked. Now the diameter of this circle is about 30 to 40 feet. If I were to yell on one side, of course someone is going to hear me on the other side. When it was our turn to try, we waited for all the yelling to end, it seemed to have work, as I would talk normally into the wall, and Qing would here me on the other side, AMAZING!
What made the site memorable to us were the people. First there were the elderly, playing a game of catch but with instruments that resemble frying pans. Majestic! I'm obviously too easy to entertain. As little miss Nasty Girl wasn't as impressed as I was. Then there was a couple of elderly men under a canopy, one playing a stringed instrument and the other singing, if you call it singing, to me it was screeching, I tried to enjoy it but I couldn't stand the too high pitched note he was singing in. I braved it for Qing as she was enjoying the supposedly tranquil music made by this couple.
A slight headache later, she noticed the grimace that I was trying to conceal and decided to walk on with me. Then there are those Chinese tourist who congregated on this one circle with a hump in the middle and all decided to pose on this little hump. We would have pictures to show you this phenomena but I umm, kinda accidentally erased these pictures.
After leaving we noticed something wrong with the Lonely Planet map. It has the main road that lies directly across from the main entrance to the Temple heading towards the Confusious plaza. Not the right area. After walking this street for a while we landed at an Ajisen Noodle shop, a place that would become a staple for us during our brief stint in China. At the conclusion of our satisfying and fulfilling meal we decided we had enough energy to tackle another site, to the Summer Palace!
The Summer Palace in Beijing - first built in 1750, largely destroyed in the war of 1860 and restored on its original foundations in 1886 - is a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design. The natural landscape of hills and open water is combined with artificial features such as pavilions, halls, palaces, temples and bridges to form a harmonious ensemble of outstanding aesthetic value.
Our experience here was somewhat limited since some of the area was closed off due to renovations in preparation of the 2008 Olympics.
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