Temple of Heaven

Today made three days in a row of being totally tourists. We headed out rather late this afternoon for the Temple of Heaven and stayed for a few hours. The park was a lot bigger than I thought it would be and it was really pretty. Apparently the Temple of Heaven (surprisingly) used to be where the emperors would worship heaven and pray for a good harvest. We came across some really great Chinglish today... I would like to eat at the dive-in kitchen for sure.

The temple itself was very pretty. I really enjoyed all of the colors and the many different buildings. We had some pretty spectacular photo opportunities today.

The Long Corridor

After we saw the main event we found another Chinese calligraphy artist to paint my name in symbols for me. You can watch the video to see my new painting and hear everything that the letters of my name mean.

My favorite part of the day was yelling into the Echo Wall. Check us out! It took a minute to figure the wall out but I think eventually we got the hang of it. I think at the end of it all we were still a bunch of dweebs yelling at a wall.

When we were finished with the Echo Wall we found our way into the Circular Mound. Again there were many photo opportunities to be had.

Peace, mom.

We are sitting on the Heavenly Center Stone of the Circular Mound

On our walk out of the park we saw a man doing water calligraphy. I absolutely love the process and it is really beautiful. I like the simplicity and impermanence of it all.

Yet again we had a really great day. We ended it by having pizza for dinner at The Tree. It was absolutely delicious. We also bought a few more DVDs and got me some new tennis shoes so I will not grow more blisters on my feet. Be on the lookout for a post on Chinese voodoo medicine. Seriously, the stuff is freaky.

Mandarin lesson:
Tiāntán 天坛 (Temple of Heaven)