Temple of Heaven

At the Echo Wall

We didn't really get to see a lot of the temple, because it was under renovation. Therefore we were only allowed to see it from outside. It will not be completed until June 2006. So we proceed to the echo wall temple and the open space prayer ground. As usual, they all look very bad shape. Probably due to the harsh weather in Beijing these few years.


A nice morning at Temple of Heaven

It was a nice little stroll through the surrounding garden here. Lots of elderly spend their time socializing with each other. There were people practising their chinese musical instruments in an orchestra style, there were group singing opera openly. Walking ahead, there were people that practice their chinese caligraphy too. They wrote a big chinese brush dipped into the water, then onto the square pavements. Mostly practice writings on some chinese verse (dui lian).

Others mostly play chinese chess, with many people surrounding them. Some play the 9 dots card (pai jiu), some play normal pocker cards.





Walking around here, it does gave me a feeling that Beijing people are mostly happy and living comfortably these days, under the current government care. In fact, we don't see much that sleep on the street when dusk falls. Every here seemed to enjoys the warmth of the summer as much as possible.