Izac's Understanding: Observations in China Part 3

Beijing

This was the view we had from our hotel window

Temple of Heaven...Great Wall...Forbidden City...Summer Palace

Holy Sh!t.

Temple of Heaven is stunning. We spent a little over an hour there--and I broke my expensive camera. In China all the retirees over 60 (or 55, I can't remember) have free access to all the state parks. Because of that when you walk into any state park you'll find dozens if not a hundred or more retirees in the park doing Tai Chi or practicing Buddhism or whatever else.

Older gentleman creating characters with water and practicing Buddhism

Tile on the Temple of Heaven is blue

In Beijing we ran into a theme with the Temples and Palaces--Are we done yet? Once you think you've seen the main building, you go around it and find something even grander.

From the temple viewing the buildings holding the prayers.
I broke this camera on my way down.

Temple of Heaven had the highest point thing where the Emperor did a ritual invoking Heaven. After this platform was a temple area housing wood or bone sheets with writing. After this first one, we went into a second set of temples holding even more important writings. Then finally we entered the real important one with the prayer the Emperor said on that platform.

Throne . . . building? Too large to be a simple room.

This is the beginning of the actual city. This is where the Emperor, his wife and concubines and servants lived.

Add another two outstanding buildings and courtyards and you'll have what happened in the Forbidden City--3 great buildings or so before the actual Throne building and celebration room. Behind that and a few other buildings was the actual city for the Concubines, Empress, children, Eunics and servants. We spent maybe 2 hours there and saw about a quarter of the place. Our feet hurt bad that morning.

Summer Palace covered walk way. It went on, and on, and on, and . . . man, it took a while.

Doesn't look too far, right? Half a mile away at least to the boat house. Too foot sore to climb to the temples.

The Summer Palace...beautiful and 292 hectacres (722 acres). Um...beautiful. Stunning. Lot of walking. Lot of people. I don't think I can describe it as well as I'd like. We didn't even come close to seeing it all.

We're on the GREAT WALL OF CHINA!!! Freaking AWESOME!!

I skipped over the Great Wall. Only because the Great Wall made such an Awe-Inspiring Impact on us. The Wall has an interesting history. Emperor Qin had is built, initially, of dirt and maybe stone. Later, much later, another emperor had parts of it built up to into the actual stone wall to protect against the barbarian hordes belonging to the Khans. As a defense it failed. Ghenis just went around the Wall instead of trying to go through it. That is a problem with fortified defenses.

It's the GREAT WALL OF CHINA!!!

We took a gondola up to tower 14 (I think) and went from there. The view . . . is just stunning. It feels like the top of the world. And the Wall just goes on and on in both directions, up and down. And you know that thousands of people died building it. The stone is uneven, eroded, and different colors. The steps are sometimes deep and sometimes shallow and often times dangerous.

Foreman's day off on these stairs.

And for some reason, my mom got it into her head that my dad and I wanted to run together on the Great Wall. So, she had us bring our running clothes and shoes. We got up on the Wall, took a group photo, then my dad and I plotted our short--and I mean short--run along the Wall. We ran about half a mile total . . . but we ran on the GREAT WALL!!! We spent an hour on the GREAT WALL! Dude, it was so freakin' awesome!!!

Top of the World...on the GREAT WALL OF CHINA!!!

Then we walked along the Wall, down a couple towers and then actually off the Wall on the the ground just inside. We hit our walking time limit (30 mins out, 30 mins back and about 10 mins left to just enjoy the Wall).