The Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace

---

On our last day in Beijing we packed in a couple most top sites, the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace. It was another national holiday, so the crowds were huge again. A highlight of the day however, was watching the people around us. We passed so many interesting characters: a husband and wife singing opera on the lakeshore, a man painting Chinese characters on the ground with a mop and water, and the many people that continued to take our pictures. One family who was out on the lake in a paddle boat came over to the shore to grab a shot of us! We kept ourselves going with random snacks along the way....with no language skills it's a 'point and hope it turns out' kind of situation. I think China would be a difficult place for a full vegetarian. I eat seafood so I can get by, however almost everything has meat. Even all the chips and crackers are meat flavoured! (BBQ Chicken wing, Teriyaki Chicken, Steak, Cajun Prawns....) Here's a bit about what we saw today....

The Summer Palace was our first stop of the day. After our awful bus ride home from the Forbidden City, we decided to splurge and take a cab. It was far more comfortable! The grounds of the Summer Palace are absolutely huge...we had no idea the amount of walking we were about to do! The palace is something like 3 square kilometres, most of which is water...so we walked around a lot of lakes. There are many of gardens, palaces, and buildings to see; beautiful landscape and architecture. Even though we had a map, we could not seem to navigate ourselves to where we wanted to go. At times, we had to be satisfied from seeing a building from the other side of the lake, because we couldn't figure out how to get across! When the walking, the heat and the crowds got to be too much, we headed off to our next destination.

The Temple of Heaven was equally as crowded, but the sun had set a little so the day was starting to cool off. The Temple of Heaven was built in 1420, with buildings symbolizing earth and heaven. The most spectacular builidng I thought, was the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest (see pictures below). I think it's pretty self explanatory what occured there!

---

Photos

interesting architecture
at the Summer Palace

the 17 Arch Bridge
at the Summer Palace

The Temple of Heaven
The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest

knock, knock, knockin on Heaven's door
Temple of Heaven

glad to be on holiday!
at the Temple of Heaven

holiday headgear
for a number of days we saw little girls and women alike, wearing these flower headbands on their hands....someone told us they were holiday celebration hats

having fun...
at the Temple of Heaven

Comments

[Roothie]

More Posters?!!!
The kids steal the show again! What a cute pic of those kids..the girl in headgear is particularly classic....looks like an ad to promotefor travel to Japan. Is quite a stopper! No doubt you will be asked by many people, (including lots of teachers!) to come and do a presentation on Japan. You've go the whole thing right here! You can make a dvd of all this or power point...not that I'd know how!!!!!