Last Day in Beijing

For our last day in Beijing we spent most of our time visiting the Temple of Heaven and boy was it Heavenly! :) This was actually one of my favorite spots in Beijing for both the beautiful architecture but also for some amazing people watching. We visited on a Saturday morning and the locals were out in full force for their mornings exercises. It was awesome! Such a wide variety of activities and people everywhere just out, enjoying the day & having a great time.

Here's just a ton of pics from our walk...

Hacky Sack & badminton

 

gymnastics training. WHAT?!?

some gigantic top spinning

lots of stretching (while reading) & public exercise equipment

 

water calligraphy

tai chi

getting in on the action. a good shoulder role does a body good. why don't I do this every morning?

dance party

plus some cards & dominoes

happy knitting club

we all loved (& kinda stalked) this bird man

 

  
as you can see we loved the roaming a people watching... finally we arrived at the Temple of Heaven! It was stunning. The complex was built during the early 15th century during the Ming Dynasty and was used by the Emperors for annual ceremonies of prayer to Heaven for good harvest. The Temple is full of different symbolism, which I'm obviously a sucker for. Per usual, wikipedia says it better than I can:

Temple of Heaven
"Earth was represented by a square and Heaven by a circle; several features of the temple complex symbolize the connection of Heaven and Earth, of circle and square."

"The number nine represents the Emperor and is evident in the design of the Circular Mound Altar: a single round marmor plate is surrounded by a ring of nine plates, then a ring of 18 plates, and so on for a total of nine surrounding rings, the outermost having 9×9 plates."

  

jump shot!!! extra happy tourists :)

we're walking, we're walking ....

 

 The Emperor's Way

 More happy tourists, lining up to walk along the Emperor's Way

 we couldn't resist making new friends :)

 

interior. unfortunately, many of the ancient artifacts have been stolen and now sit in museums outside of China. 

oh, and I almost stole some adorable little kids!

mom took this one and I really liked the perspective of it...

 then we were off to Xi'an!

oh, we also did a drive-by of the Olympic Park. and saw the Bird's Nest... or did we? (this is the most contrast I can add on this photo.)