First Trip to Beijing

First Trip to Beijing

Since we didn’t need to start teaching until the 21^st of Sept., we decided to take a day trip to Beijing.  The Larsons, Craig and Carol, who lived about 10 minutes from us on bikes and taught at Tianjin University, decided to go with us.  We took a taxi to the train station and then figured out how to buy tickets for the high speed train to Beijing.  In the apartment, we had been left all these little business cards that had the names of the places to visit written in Chinese on one side and English on the other side.  So to take a taxi, you would just show the driver the card of where you wanted to go and then the taxi had a meter and you knew how much to pay him.  If you wanted to go someplace that you did not have a card for, you would find someone who spoke English and Chinese and have them write out where you wanted to go in Chinese and then you had a card for the new place.  There was an office for foreign teachers in the building just across the plaza from our apartment building and they always had someone who could help us.  We always carried a card for the University so we could get home.  We did learn the bus line that would take us to a few of our favorite haunts, but I will tell you about them in another post.  The train to Beijing took about 30 minutes and always left on time.  It took longer to get from our apartment to the train station than it took to get to Beijing.  It is about 175 kilometers to Beijing, but traveling at 320 Kilometers per hour really gets you there fast.  You get a little sick if you try and focus your eyes on things that are close to the train, but if you look at things in the distance it doesn’t bother you. 

Mom too has her happy face on.

We visited the Temple of Heaven and the Pearl Market that are just across the street from each other.  The subway system in Beijing is great and you can catch it from the high speed train station and go anywhere you want to go.

Temple of Heaven

L to R Craig Larson, Carol Larson and Me.  I think I am trying to hold my stomach in.

Brides would come and have there wedding pictures taken in the park surrounding the building of the Temple of Heaven.

They love covered walkways.

They love covered walkways.

There was an energy among the people.  They would come to the parks and interact in interesting ways.  This man is writing calligraphy with water.  We didn't know if he was writing famous sayings or telling a story.

"In ancient China, the Emperor of China was regarded as the Son of Heaven, who administered earthly matters on behalf of, and representing, heavenly authority. To be seen to be showing respect to the source of his authority, in the form of sacrifices to heaven, was extremely important. The temple was built for these ceremonies, mostly comprising prayers for good harvests.
Twice a year the Emperor and all his retinue would move from the Forbidden city through Beijing to encamp within the complex, wearing special robes and abstaining from eating meat. No ordinary Chinese was allowed to view this procession or the following ceremony. In the temple complex the Emperor would personally pray to Heaven for good harvests. The highpoint of the ceremony at the winter solstice was performed by the Emperor on the Earthly Mount. The ceremony had to be perfectly completed; it was widely held that the smallest of mistakes would constitute a bad omen for the whole nation in the coming year.

The Temple of Heaven

See, mom has already been shopping.

And the painting on the ceilings are beautiful.

Earth was represented by a square and Heaven by a circle; several features of the temple complex symbolize the connection of Heaven and Earth, of circle and square. The whole temple complex is surrounded by two cordons of walls; the outer wall has a taller, semi-circular northern end, representing Heaven, and a shorter, rectangular southern end, representing the Earth. Both the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests and the Circular Mound Altar are round, each standing on a square yard, again representing Heaven and Earth.
The number nine represents the Emperor and is evident in the design of the Circular Mound Altar: a single round marmor plate is surrounded by a ring of nine plates, then a ring of 18 plates, and so on for a total of nine surrounding rings, the outermost having 9×9 plates.
The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests has four inner, twelve middle and twelve outer pillars, representing the four seasons, twelve months and twelve traditional Chinese hours respectively. Combined together, the twelve middle and twelve outer pillars represent the traditional solar term.
All the buildings within the Temple have special dark blue roof tiles, representing the Heaven." That was from Wikipedia. This is John now.  I think it is interesting that even today we use the circle and the square to represent Heaven and Earth.  These symbols are found in many of our latter day temples.

The carvings on the stone are incredible.