Temple of Heaven

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Geo: 39.9203, 116.432

After a brief evening thunderstorm and a windy night, we awoke to beautiful clear skies. A relaxed 10 o'clock start today, commencing with a visit to the Temple of Heaven.

After that we had a rickshaw ride around the Hutong old town which included an interesting visit to a local family for green tea and a conversation about their family and it's history.

We then had a two-hour wait at the airport for our flight to Xi'an (pronounced See ahn) and found a Chinese fast food restaurant that served 500ml bottles of beer. Michael won the inaugural Least Diligent Tourist award for 1) buying warm beer when cold beer was available, then 2) buying cold light beer when cold full strength beer was available. He topped this off by losing his boarding pass and had to throw himself at the mercy of the service desk staff to get a replacement.

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Photos

Temple of Heaven
The original ancient temple was destroyed by lightning fire twice. It was last rebuilt in the 18th© entirely of wood (again!) with only mortise and tenon joints holding it together.

Temple interior
Long story about the ceremonies and rituals to seek good harvests and other favourable outcomes.
I was struck by the difference between medieval cathedral interiors and this painted wooden relief.

Rickshaw tour
Pleasant hour-long tour of Hutong. Our guide Jennifer's grandparents still live (by choice) in this part of Beijing even though there are no internal bathrooms and all residents use basic communal toilets and shower rooms.

Local lady artist
This lady has lived for 50 years in a 100 year old house in the old town of Hutong. Her grandfather was a Master Artist in the Forbidden City and he taught her the art of bottle painting - from the inside!
As a Master Artist he was very well off and the family owned several buildings around a central courtyard. Come the Cultural Revolution his lands were confiscated and the family was left with a small part of their original holdings.

Comments

[Morag]

Poor Michael, is nothing sacred. Warts and all exposed, but certainly sounds like you are all having fun and almost don't want to look anymore in case we do get to do this long awaited tour. Great photos and enjoying it all. Keep it up whi
le we sit in the relative comfort of a cold lounge in front of a heater, off to kitchen to create our champagne cooked breakie and plan.... For what ? Xx

[Jane O'Connell]

Michael lose anything? - never!

[Morag]

Amazing! I want one! Would love to see how it's done.

[robselclark]

Ask and ye shall receive!