Third Day of touring – To Market, To Market (also, Temple of Heaven and Olympic site)

I have been allowed to continue my tour, as the only thing worse than sending email attachments out of the country is to not stick to a pre-arranged itinerary.

WOW, that was some lightning strike/thunderclap just now. It is 9pm here (7am back home), and there is a – YIKES, I think that last one set off a car alarm, and the formerly flashing neon lights across the street just went out. Everything else seems normal though; the power is on everywhere else.

Ok, back to the blog

The Temple of Heaven is a complex of multiple buildings built in the early 1400s. The most striking structure, the three-tiered Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, was used by the Emperor to, uh, pray for good harvests. Today, I found it to be a crowded and hectic tourist attraction. I did, however, appreciate the activities of locals, mainly retirees just outside the main area, including water calligraphy, playing music, and dancing.

After dark, we toured the Olympic site where the Bird’s Nest Stadium and the Water Cube are located. This was also filled with many people, but it was a more relaxed atmosphere, with most people just milling about.

-Paul Stinson