Trans-Eurasia Journey Home

Chronicles of Craig and Mary's journey from South Korea, through China, Mongolia, Siberia/Russia, Europe and back home to Fort Erie, Canada.

Saturday, September 03, 2005

Temple of Heaven (Tiantan) Park

Pictures: Craig's / Mary's

A 30 minute walk brought us to this huge park (in this area, everything seems huge - compensating for height maybe?). Anyway, we spent most of the day walking around the park during another perfect day.


Some history (copied from a brochure):
The Temple of Heaven was the place where the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties would worship heaven and pray for bumper crops. The northern part of the outer surrounding wall is semi-circular in shape while the southern part square, a pattern symbolic of the ancient belief that Heaven was round and the earth square. The double surrounding wall separates the temple into two parts - the inner and outer temples with the main structures in the inner one, covering a space of 273 hectares in all.


More info on the Temple of Heaven at Wikipedia

2 Comments:

Blogger Matthew Forsythe said...

a tip: head back to the temple of heaven at 630am any morning and do tai chi with the local seniors! there are hundreds of them in the temple park doing tai chi and dancing and blaring frank sinatra and they'll happily let you join in. it was perhaps the highlight of my time in beijing.

2:17 AM GMT+9  
Blogger Unknown said...

The problem is waking up that early :) The park is huge, which area did you find them?

12:18 PM GMT+9  

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