Destination: Beijing
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Dongyue Temple
One of the city’s lesser-known temples, located just a stone’s throw from the main drag, it has just undergone extensive renovation. In earlier centuries, hundreds of monks called it home. One novel feature is to display plaster models of the colorful characters that would have inhabited the temple during its heyday, along with fantasy figures from Chinese tradition such as dragons and monkeys. It is not a huge temple, but it is peaceful.
Temple of Heaven
This park-cum-temple is where the emperors came to worship on auspicious occasions, making their grand way down a series of walkways and minor temples before reaching the place where prayers would be said, and animal sacrifices made, to ensure good harvests ahead. None of the individual temples is particularly large; it’s the scale and symmetry of the whole that makes the site such an exquisite piece of architecture. Enter as the emperors did, ambling along the pathways, pausing at the outer temples. At the eastern entrance, there is often a jovial gathering of old-timers, who sing patriotic songs heartily, accompanied by saxophones, erhus and tambourines. It is marvelous fun. It would be a shame to give the Temple of Heaven a speedy trip in and out: leave plenty of time to stroll, ponder and marvel at the simple ingenuity of ancient Chinese design.
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