Sept. 28 - Temple of Heaven and Tienanmen (Again)

Surprisingly enough, last Sunday I did more than merely devour my fair share of insects, sea creatures, and other skewered animals. Fairly early in the morning, I hopped upon the subway and gradually made my way to one of the most well-known historical attractions in Beijing - the Temple of Heaven complex.

Now, the furthest the nearest subway stop could take me was several blocks, so I had to hoof it the rest of the way there via a route that took me by some very interesting looking floral arrangements, no doubt put up originally for the Olympics.

Now, when they marked this complex out as a park on my tourist map, they weren't kidding, because as soon as I entered, at first all I could find was pathways and trees as far as the eye could see.

It hardly took long until I found the main attraction....kinda. I must confess, things aren't the way they seem in this blog entry, for actually the following pictures are all out of order. How can that be, you may ask? Simple - I entered the park through the back and thus did the whole thing backwards. But, for the sake of trying to keep things simple, here's how my tour would've gone had I entered through the front entrance like most other visitors prefer to do. 

The first site that one reaches in the complex (if they enter through the preferred entrance) is the circular mound altar, where the emperor would pray for good weather...and where tourists were fighting to get a photo of themselves standing in the center, which was unfortunately a battle that I lost. 

After that, one only needs to travel a few yards to reach the nearby Imperial Vault of Heaven, which in a way was a bit like a glorified storage house for the objects used in the ceremonies performed by the emperor (it was gorgeous, nevertheless). 

Right outside that was a tree of particular interest, or so claimed the plaque posted next to it.

Then, finally the grand centerpiece of it all - the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, which was truly nothing less than an absolutely spectacular sight. 

What you see here is probably but a fraction of the photos that I took of this architectural wonder. Granted, many of those pictures on my computer are basically duplicates, but I honestly just couldn't help myself. Once I had that masterpiece in my camera sights, I would just start clicking away madly in a mad effort to capture as much as the moment as I possibly could. I seriously found myself little self-control, for I found the structure to be just so indescribably beautiful. I basically became entranced with it to the point where I just sat down and just looked at it for maybe a good half-hour, at least.

Finally though, I managed to peel my eyes away and continued on with my tour of the park. Once I was finished, I decided to head back to campus, though not without paying another visit to nearby Tienanmen Square, mainly out of hopes of seeing Mao's body in display at the mausoleum in the center of the square.   

Alas, the photos you see here mark the furthest that I got, because A) The body is only on display from 8:00 AM-12:00 Pm (and it was 1:00 when I arrived), and B) it wasn't even open that week due to the national holiday, for some odd reason. At least I got a nice, up-close look at the Monument to the People's Heroes, or as good as I could get, as they rope off the area around it, for some another reason that has yet to be explained to me.

At least for Mao's embalmed body, there's still the rest of the semester! Provided that is, I don't get buried up to my neck in coursework.