China - Day 26

This was our first full day back in Beijing. Today was actually did some real touring here. While we were here last time, we never did much real touring. We went to the Great Wall, and climbed a mountian, we also went to the “egg,” but those are just a few of the places. So, today we went to Tian Tan (Temple of Heaven) and the Summer Palace. I’ve been told that you can’t say you’ve toured Beijing unless you tour those two places. Well, we are offically tourists of Beijing. Any how, those places were pretty interesting.

We went to Tian Tan first. This is the temple where the emperor worshiped the God in the sky. In some exhibits the placks said that the Chinese were worshiping the sky (or heaven), in others though, they said the God of Heaven. Anyway, this is a possible place where the Chinese worshiped God.

The whole place is very large. I think it is around the same size as the Forbidden City as far as hectacres go. It wasn’t as long, but more squarish. The buildings all looked like those in the Forbidden City. There were fewer buildings, but those that were there were all ornate and Chinese.

We entered the city from the East gate, so the main temple of wroship was very close to where we entered. So, we were at the main attraction of the place within a few minutes. The temple very prominent. Inside the walls there are three levels of stone, like the floors of a building, and the temple was on the top of those. The temple and the stone levels it sat on were all circles.

The next thing that we did was walk toward the next part of the temple, the Echo Wall. In order to get there though you have to walk along a very long open stone road. This road goes from the Temple of Heaven, to the next part of the temple. I don’t know why it was built like this, but anyway, there is this big seperation between these two parts of the temple.

The Echo Wall is a large circular wall with three buildings inside. Supposedly, you can stand at one point of the wall, and have some one else stand on the opposite side, along the diameter line of the circle, and you can talk to each other. We didn’t really try to do that, but it seemed like it would have worked. It is one of those things that you take on faith, and just assume others have succeeded in getting to work.

There was anothing worshiping temple inside of the Echo Wall area. I forget what it was for exactly, but I think it was a pre-wroship temple. A place for you to get ready to worship at the real temple. The worship of the God of Heaven was a really big deal. After Emperor worshipped God, the officials would all congradulate him, and the emperor would send out a decree of the succesful worship of God. I guess that means that there could be unseccesful times when they tried to worship.

The whole ceremony was pretty long. There were animal sacrifices. So, the animals had to be chosen and prepared, I think that calfs were used. There was also a fast before worship. So, all the officials would go to a place to fast. Then there was other stuff that happened that I cannot remember. It seemes like this was the most important time of worship. I don’t know if other gods were worshipped during this time, but they were inferior of the God of Heaven.

After the Echo Wall we went to the circular alter. This was another big three tier stone structure. This whole thing was a big alter where the Chinese made sacrifices. This alter was enclosed by two walls. Each of the walls had gates in the North, South, East, and West. Each gate had three doors to it, so, there were twenty-four gates in all. I think they were called the cloud gates.

That was the end of the Tian Tan tour. So, we sort of walked from one end to the other of the place. The next part place we went to was the Summer Palace.

Notice: I just wanted to let you know that I am writing this next part tomorrow. I ran out of time to write it tonight.

OK, the Summer Palace. This was another amazing place. The Palace is actually whole big park. It is not one specific palace, but rather a whole bunch of buildings spread out over a big campus. We spent most of our time out in the lake on a paddle boat.

A little ways past the entrance there is one of the four lakes that are in the park. You can rent paddle boats and go around. So, we rented one and paddled around the lake. We were able to make it to the middle of the lake, where there is a little island with a small temple building, and then to the far side of the lake. Then, we paddled to the stone boat. The stone boat is a large stone house one the lake. It is not floating, but it looks like it is. Anyway, they were not allowing people to get on the boat. It is two stories high, with nice Chinese accents.

After that we paddled back along the shore. One one side of the lake, the North side I believe, there is a large palace temple building. It is called the Buhda palace. There is one large palace, with other smaller buildings around it.

After landing back at the dock, we started walking around on the trails. There were lots of sidewalks around the area on the North side of the mountian. Once we got up a little way, all the tourists seemed to dissapear. Everyone just stayed right on the water edge, but everything else was clear.

We walked around to the big Buhda palace area. There were, what looked to be, original non-restored buildings. So, the paint was faded and coming off in some places, and everything looked old. There was also a large enclosed rocky place up on the mountian. We made it to a place on the North side of the mountian that let us see some of Beijing. So, that was really pretty.

That was most of our time at the Summer Palace. We spent the rest of the time walking to the North-West gate where we were going to be picked up. We had a really good time at the palace.
-Aaron


The map of the place

From China Day 26

The Temple of Heaven

From China Day 26

From China Day 26

The long walk that seperated the main temple from the other parts of the park.

From China Day 26

From China Day 26

The circular alter.

From China Day 26

The next photos are of the Summer Palace

Here is one of the buildings there, next to the lake.

From China Day 26

The lake

From China Day 26

The stone boat.

From China Day 26

The big temple on the side of the mountian.

From China Day 26

One of the rocky areas up on the mountian

From China Day 26

A little close up of rooftops

From China Day 26

On the Highway in Beijing, there were a lot of signs to help you improve your driving. There is nothing really wrong with the sign, but it is still humorous.

From Chinglish

Chinese copies are everywhere...

From Chinglish