The Altar of Heaven

Well, after our little stoparooni or whatever we wanted to call our brief look-see at the Square, we continued on to the Temple of Heaven, a very ambiguous tribute to the unknown power or being,  to whom the Chinese felt responsible to pay homage. This being was known as Shang Di whose name is now used for the Big Man. It was a very nature-y and green place. Some parts of the grounds are amazingly serene, and if you woke up from a nap you might forget that you were in noisy, busy Beijing. But the main areas as is to be expected are packed. On the right, Darin is giddily standing on the center on the mound for sacrifices, a place which for some reason, everyone needed to stand on or put his child onto. So naturally we hopped on too. That ended day one of Beijing, and exhausted we returned to get some rest to take on the Summer Palace.

As always more pictures of this and more can be seen here: http://picasaweb.google.com/jankepj
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