Blogs from Temple of Heaven, Beijing, China, Asia - page 6

Group was going on another art museum/tea house excursion, Wes and & (as well as about a dozen other students) just said forget it and stayed back, as these sort of smaller afternoon trips are optional. I really needed to do laundry haha, and everyone's backed up on studying, didn't wanna have to choose between the two when I got back tonight. Anyways also got a chance to get all my pictures in one accessible place. http://s294.photobucket.com/albums/mm93/sterlingsin/ on the lefthand side is a link that says "Great Wall" which will take you to some other pictures, follow these links as long as possible. For some reason this is how photobucket organizes albums. Got a B on my first test--I'm happy with this, considering I didn't know at all what to expect. This week's test should be ... read more

Today we toured the Temple of Heaven and the surrounding gardens. It was so beautiful. It was built for the emperor to pray for good harvests for the upcoming year. The Temple of Heaven is actually a collection of buildings all for the purpose of making the emperor's prayer time a success. There were kitchens to make the food offerings, animal pavilions to ready the animals for sacrifice, and dressing stages to get ready for the ceremonies. The main temple (see pictures) was made without a single nail!! All of this was surrounded by gorgeous green spaces including huge cypress trees. We sat down on a park bench to have a snack and rest before moving on when a policeman rode by on his bicycle. Police are generally unsmiling and very stern-faced. However, this guy rode ... read more

Although this entry is stated to be in Beijing it is actually an overview of all the places that I visited within China. So far China has been my favourite country because the food has been amazing and so varied. It is a good idea to eat in a group and share dishes to do it the traditional Chinese way. Loving the free tea that comes with most meals so don't forget to top up on that Jasmine tea is lovely and a good way to top up your fluid intake. China is very reasonable price wise but Beijing and Shanghai were a little bit more pricier than the other areas I visited. Beijing was a real eye opener for me you can meet so many people especially in the hostel near to the Forbidden City ... read more

Goodbyes are always hard Well, this will be my last post from Beijing as I am getting ready to go to the train station and catch my train to Xian, so just a quick one. This morning I wandered over to the Temple of Heaven. It was very nice, the parks were very peaceful and people were enjoying themselves; singing, picnicking, exercising. On the way back I passed some of the older Hutongs which are being torn down in the name of progress. It is a sad sight, that loss of history in favour of a shopping mall. My impressions of Beijing have been amazing, it is a wonderful city: amazing food, amazing people, amazing sights, and loads of fun. I can definitely recommend Beijing as a great place to spend some time here. I am ... read more

The Temple of Heaven (Tian Tan) in Beijing covers about 3 000 000 square metres. It is a bigger area than the Forbidden City. The Temple was built in 1420 A.D. during the Ming Dynasty to offer sacrifices to Heaven (not human I think!!), which is the same time as the construction of the Forbidden City. The Temple of Heaven is enclosed with a long wall. The northern part within the wall is semicircular symbolizing the heavens and the southern part is square symbolizing the earth. This design reflected an ancient Chinese thought of 'the heaven is round and the earth is square'. The entrance to the park seems a bit uninviting with hawkers attacking you from every direction. Upon entering, the size of the park is so massive you wonder where all the temples are, ... read more