Temples, Temples
This will be a LONG day today. Our flight doesn’t leave until 01:10 so we need a few things to occupy the time. Left the bags and backpacks at the hotel after another excellent breakfast (I shall miss those egg tarts!). Another perfect day. The meeting point for our MU Bus guide involved a subway transfer over to the Lama Temple line. It was a small group with just 5 people … a couple from Brazil, young fellow from New Zealand, and us.
Leo (our guide) is a character – accent more Cantonese than Mandarin … he’d lived in London for over a decade and was originally an IT specialist before switching to tourism. He has a wealth of knowledge, history and humour in equal measure. The Heavenly Temple of Good Harvests was first – this link explains the system of columns inside and how they relate to the months and seasons of harvest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Heaven A triple-eaved circular building with glorious colours and details. Round for the gods, square for the earth. Gold or yellow is the highest colour (Gods), followed by Blue (Emperors) then Green (earth/people). Views from the mountain top would be spectacular on a clear day, but even through the smog/haze you can see downtown Beijing in the distance … especially the massive skyscraper.
Walking through the Temple of Heaven Park to the bus pick up point, groups of older ladies were playing Jianzi, a sort of hacky-sac but with wood & feather shuttlecocks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jianzi . Much harder than it looks, although I did manage one shot. Farther along, a large gathering of people, again mostly older in age, drew our attention. This was one of the famous Marriage Markets where parents, either with their children’s knowledge (or not!), look for promising partners. https://www.hiredchina.com/articles/chinas-infamous-marriage-markets/ The taking of photos is strictly forbidden. We spoke with one mother whose daughter had listed all requirements: age range, height range; education (bachelor degree or higher); own home preferred; attractive; kind.
We met up with the Spanish-speaking tour group and quickly piled aboard the mini bus as it drew up … side-stepping smartly to avoid the streams of scooters, people and vehicles. An arranged lunch of Peking duck and other foods was very pleasant, and gave us a chance to explain chopstick use and communal dishes for sampling, which apparently is not common in Brazil and New Zealand.
Lama Temple was next (our favourite). A series of temples housing huge Buddhas, usually three in each … depicting the past, present and future. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yonghe_Temple No photography is allowed inside the temples, but this link has some excellent pictures. And this video is beautifully shot https://youtu.be/Oo-ICKt_kwE … not sure how they managed some of the inside images! As you passed through each gate there were large incense burners … people would ignite three slender sticks of incense and stand them upright in the ash remains. In the fifth and last temple stood the Maitreya Buddha – 18 meters tall (59ft) with an additional 8 meters underground (26 ft) making it a total of 26 meters (85 ft) tall. Made from a single piece of white sandalwood, it’s the world’s largest wooden Buddha. Truly an awesome sight. Nice to see the Tibetan language portrayed and monks in their saffron robes. Mention of Tibet, however, was glossed over.
Last visit of the afternoon was to the Summer Palace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Palace – the summer residence of Emperors. Back in the early 1700s an impressive lake was dug and the palace built as a gift from one emperor to his dowager mother. But by the end of the 1800s the palace was running into disrepair. Empress Cixi was actually far more powerful than her husband the Emperor – and it was she who pretty much ran the country. This can be seen by the placement of Dragon and Phoenix statues outside the palace … her Phoenix has prominence. Some stories claim she spent money vital for the Chinese navy on renovating the palace instead, and that she imprisoned the Emperor in a small complex on the grounds. There’s a covered walkway that seems to go on forever – and hase (I think) over 1400 hand-painted scenes on the columns and ceiling depicting each of the four seasons. Some are quite faded but the summer ones had just been redone. We were lucky enough to see one of the large ceremonial barges being prepared for operation, but it was the flotilla of brightly coloured smaller versions that made for a brilliant photo.
By this point we were on the complete opposite side of the city to our hotel, and at 5:00 pm the subway would be in rush hour mode. Undaunted, we set off. All quiet so far – we even had our choice of seats, but that soon changed approaching downtown. Changing lines was an experience … as oceans of people were disgorged from various lines, all rushing to get home. It works though, as long as people journeying one way kept to the outsides, leaving a central channel for those traveling the opposite direction … more or less! At times it still felt like wading through molasses. We made it back in well under an hour though.
Stopped for a quick peek at the Mega Mall across the road (and a pistachio ice cream) before retrieving our bags at the hotel and plunging back into the subway system for the journey out to the airport. All very smooth and achievable. It’ll probably feel like a long wait now until 1:00 am!
