Beijing - Traveling Thru History

Temple of Heaven: Circular Mound Altar

Erin — Sun, 19 Jul 2015 14:00:29 +0000

After we finished up at the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests we decided to wander around the grounds as the sun went down. We hadn’t done a ton of research as our trip to China wasn’t planned far enough in advance to do more than list places that looked interesting, so we didn’t really know what all was on the grounds on the Temple of Heaven. We saw people heading through a gate opposite from where we had entered the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests area and decided to see where they were going. We had no idea what was there and were excited about being ‘surprised’. The first thing we saw when we came upon the Circular Mound site was a beautiful and elaborate wall with a set of intricately decorated gates. Thankfully, there was a description of the site, but we didn’t read it until later. The sun was going down and we wanted to get a few decent shots before it got down too far. Troy isn’t a fan of me stopping to read all the info cards at all the the places we go (some have TONS), so we compromised and I take photos to read later. As the sign says, the Circular Mound Altar was first built in 1530 during the Ming Dynasty. The original purpose was to offer sacrifices during the Winter Solstice to both thank Heaven for the bounty of the current year and to ensure good harvests in the coming year. The other ceremony held here was a rain prayer ceremony during times of drought. The Emperor would come to the Circular Mound and pray to Heaven during an elaborate ceremony for the drought to end and rain to return. Since we didn’t read the sign and hadn’t looked into the site before we got there, we didn’t know what was going on, what it was, or why people were interested in it, but we decided to follow along and check it out with them. There where were way too many people at this gate, though, so we walked around the side to an identical set of gates so we could get better pictures. Before I get into any of the interesting things about the layout of the site, I’ll mention that the exterior has significant meaning. The Circular Mound grounds are enclosed by a square wall and the next wall, the one with the gates, is round. This design symbolizes the world. To the Chinese, the square outer wall represents earth while the round inner wall represents heaven. The three levels of the altar represent communication with heaven. To give you an idea of how large the Circular Mound site is, I was all the way back in the far corner of the square wall, leaning back as far as I could, but I still couldn’t get the entire site with my wide angle lens. The gates of the altar site are called Lingxing Gate of the Circular Mound Altar. There are 24 of them total, three on each side of the square exterior wall and three on each of the four sides of the circular inner wall. The three doorways are said to be of differing heights, the center being the tallest for Heaven, the one on the left is the second tallest and is for the Emperor while the door on the right is the smallest for all the others in attendance for the ceremony. One thing I learned while researching this site is the importance of the number 9 in Chinese culture. The Chinese see odd numbers as positive while the even numbers are negative, so with 9 being the largest single-digit positive number, it is associated with the dragon, which is a symbol of power and is in turn associated with the Emperor. Since 9 is such an important number in Chinese culture, the entire Circular Mound Altar is made using derivatives of 9. There are three levels and each of the stairways between the levels is composed of nine steps. The pillars on each level are in multiples of nine and the stone slats on the walls of each layer are also in multiples of nine. Once you get up to the top, that’s where the fun starts. At the center of the altar is a stone called the Heaven Heart Stone. People stand on this stone to make wishes to heaven. But during the Ming Dynasty, this stone was where an orator would stand during the sacrifice ceremonies and where the Emperor would pray during the rain prayer ceremonies. Due to the acoustical setup of the site, the person who is standing on the stone’s voice will be amplified. It’s actually really cool to see. If you look closely (i know, it’s a terrible picture. i had my focal point way too small), you can see that there are nine pieces of marble surrounding the stone. Outside of that is a layer of 18 stones. Past that, 27. It goes all the way up to 81 stones. It really is a masterpiece of symmetry and numerical composition. As we stood watching people take pictures of each other on the stone, we eventually decided that we should do it, too. People were quite nice when we got on the stone and our friend took a picture of us. Several Chinese people giggled a bit and took pictures of us standing on the stone. They probably knew we had no idea what we were doing, and they were right. lol Have you ever gone somewhere and when you were done found something you weren’t expecting?

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Temple of Heaven: The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests

Erin — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 14:00:56 +0000

If you ever go to Beijing, one of the places you’ll want to visit is the Temple of Heaven. It’s a 15-minute drive south of the Forbidden City and close to several other areas of interest. We did a circuit where we visited the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and then the Temple of Heaven in one day and felt like we were able to enjoy ourselves at each one without feeling rushed. The Temple of Heaven began construction in 1406 and was completed in 1420, just 4 years before the Yongle Emperor died. The complex is made up of two sections, the inner section and the outer section, covering 660 acres. The outer section is a lovely series of garden paths while the inner section is broken up into several smaller sections: the Abstinence Palace, the Echo Wall, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests and the Circular Mound Alter. Today’s post is going to be about the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. There are several ways to get into the Temple of Heaven complex. We went in the entrance by the North Heavenly Gate and after a short walk down a tree-lined path and through a beautifully ornate gate we came to the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is a triple-gabled circular building, 118 feet in diameter and 125 feet tall. It stands on a three level marble base and is where the Emperor prayed for good harvests. One of the interesting features of this building is that it was built entirely out of wood, but used no nails. The original building was burned down after being struck by lightning in 1889 and the current building was re-built several years later using the same design. This is the building where the Emperor would come to offer prayers of thanks for the bounty of the current year’s harvest and to pray for a good harvest during the upcoming season. The symbolism of the building is very profound. In Chinese culture, the circle represents heaven and the square represents earth. If you look at the building, both are represented in the design and ornamentation. The interior of the building has four inner, twelve middle and twelve outer pillars, representing the four seasons, twelve months and twelve traditional Chinese hours respectively. Combined together, the twelve middle and twelve outer pillars represent the traditional solar term. The outside, well, the outside is just magnificent. One of the things I really loved about this building was the roof. Various aspects of Chinese culture are represented in the artwork carved into the panels. Doesn’t it look amazing? The blue tiles of the roof are representative of Heaven. The dragon is the ultimate symbol of power in Chinese culture and is thus associated with Heaven and the Emperor. While I was wandering around, I noticed these little girls across the courtyard having so much fun. It was hilarious to sit there and watch them run up the stairs, slide down and then run up again. They were pretty cute. While it may look like the steps leading up to the top platform are a lot, they’re really not that many. The three-level marble terrace of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests has four sets of double stairways of which there are 9 steps per leve. The stairways facing north and south are decorated with stone bas-reliefs symbolizing dragons and phoenixes presenting prophetic tokens. The balustrade pillars and water spouts on each tier are similarly decorated. There was also a neat little exhibition hall on the grounds that says the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is the largest round wooden ancient building in China and explains how the numeric logic of the design is identical to the time concept of the Chinese lunar calendar. It’s really neat to see how exquisitely the craftsmanship is in sync with the religious ideology of the Chinese culture. And then there were the scale-model replicas of different buildings around the complex. Aren’t these neat! We were all so fascinated by the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests that we spent almost an hour at this section alone. All the marble carvings and decorative woodwork of the tiered roofs were just magnificent. Before we left and moved on to the next section of the complex, we stopped in the Imperial Hall of Heaven, which was where the tablets of the Emperor’s ancestors were housed. The Emperor would come here the day before the prayer ceremony to burn incense and perform rituals before the tablets were moved to the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. And, of course, our trip wouldn’t have been complete without having a photo of us in front of the Hall. Check back on Sunday for more about our trip around the Temple of Heaven!

The post Temple of Heaven: The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests first appeared on Traveling Thru History.

Visiting the Great Wall of China

Erin — Mon, 15 Jun 2015 00:50:24 +0000

I’ll tell you now, before I get into my post, that this post has a LOT of pictures. I hope you enjoy my journey along the top of the Great Wall of China! To pick up where my last post left off, after we hung up with Kevin we wandered around the Beijing Olympic Stadium for a while. The tour company called us several times, asking if we wanted them to come get us, where we were, what had upset us (haha, that one was funny) and if we could work out a deal. We weren’t about to tell them where we were and we definitely didn’t want to attempt another ride with them, so we just kept waiting on Kevin to call us back. And goofing off. I mean, even if we’re somewhat stranded in the middle of Beijing and a bit stressed out from our day going so crazy, we can still have fun, right? After about an hour Kevin called us and said he’d found someone who could take us to the Great Wall. The price would be 600RMB and there would be no superfluous stops along the way. We were ecstatic to have a ride to the Wall, regardless of the price increase, and quickly went to where he said his friend would meet us. He was there when we got there and within minutes we were on our way. I feel terrible that none of us remember his name, but I think part of it was that we were all so frazzled and stressed about the morning’s events. He was really nice, so I’m sure he will forgive us. From this point on, though, almost everything went just the way we wanted it to. Kevin’s friend was really great. He drove us straight to the Great Wall and chatting with us along the way. He was very nice and very friendly and, most importantly, didn’t try to con us out of any money. After an hour of driving and feeling more relaxed than we had all day, we arrived at the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. While the Great Wall was first begun around 700 BC, the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall was built during the 6th century AD. After a few hundred years it began to crumble and in 1569 this section of the wall was repaired with some parts being entirely rebuilt. On the east lies the Gubeikou section and on the west is the Juyongguan Pass. Of all the sections of the Great Wall, the Mutianyu section is the best-preserved, most unique and had the largest scale of construction, though it is one of the lesser-visited areas. After a quick lunch and figuring out a game plan, we took off to ascend the Great Wall. We’d considered climbing the stairs up to the top, but there are over 4,000 of them. As in-shape as we are, 4,000 steps in a row is a lot and we didn’t want to wear ourselves out before we’d seen anything. What’s the point of using all of our energy getting up the wall and then not having any left to explore it? So, up the chair lift we went and got to see our first view of the Wall. The first thing I noticed about the wall when we got to the top is how level it is not. You’d think the Great Wall would be flat with gentle grades, but it’s really quite steep at some parts. Honestly, by the end of the day I was thinking they should change the name from The Great Wall of China to The Great Staircase of China. Seems more fitting, considering how many steps you have to climb.The entirety of the Great Wall, including branch-offs, spans roughly 13,171 miles. The Mutianyu section is the longest section of the Great Wall and runs about 14 miles in length. No, we did not walk the entire thing. lol. The section we visited is flanked by two “no-tourist” areas, so it is only 1.5 miles in length. But that’s a little misleading because if you take the chairlift up, it deposits you a little over a quarter of a mile from the end. If you want to walk the entire thing, you have to go all the way to the right for about .3 miles and then go the full 1.5 miles the way to the other end. If you choose to go down the tobaggan ride just past the end (the tower just before the wall cuts left and goes straight up), that’s another .06 miles, so in reality you end up doing 1.86 miles if you go from one end to the other. We decided to go back down where we came up, so including the 1.2 mile backtracking, we did about 3 miles overall. It wasn’t too bad. A bit hot, but we had hats and plenty of water, so we were fine. In addition to the main wall, there are various offshoot sections that have not been repaired and are off limits to tourists. Some you can walk down and others you can’t. Someone wanted to make sure the world knew they were here. Vandalism? Or a 6th century version of writing your name in cement?Overall there are 23 watchtowers that dot the top of the Wall. They are spaced roughly 328 feet (100 meters) apart. The interior of the watchtowers seems sparse now, but I imagine there were tables, wall hangings, cots, a warm fire, maybe a rug or two and other bits of comfort for those who had to live here.The neverending stairs of the Great Wall of China. Seriously. There were more stair sections than flat sections on the wall.When I see how dense the forest is around the Wall, it makes me wonder why anyone would want to attack through this area and how people on the wall could see the attackers in the forest. Maybe that’s why this section is the best preserved? It had the fewest number of attackers and therefore the least damage?Getting to the top of the watchtowers isn’t too hard. While it’s possible to walk across the slant to get up there, they’ve blocked that part off so you can only go up via the stairs inside the watchtower.This is Zheng Guan Tai Pass. This layout of three towers, as well as the interior connection of the towers, is something that is only seen at this section of the wall. For some reason, I didn’t get any shots of the actual pass itself, just shots with the pass off to the side. Oh well. It’s not a terrible shot.The hidden red door! We climbed down an area that I don’t think we were supposed to and found this red door. Not sure where it goes, but I thought it was kinda cool. Perhaps it’s a magical door that takes people to Narnia! Now I’m sad we didn’t try to open it. 🙁 One thing I found curious about the wall was the shift and tilt. It would be flat one moment and then sharply angled within a few steps. With as masterful as the Chinese are with their buildings, I’m sure this wasn’t an accident or the result of careless construction. Can’t find anything about it online, so I’m curious about why the level of the wall changes so much.Looking back at where we started. We began at a landing just to the right of where I took this picture and then climbed up to the watchtower at the top of the hill before turning around and coming back towards the opposite end. It’s about .3 miles from this point to the far tower.Far off remnants of fortification branches.One of the interesting facts I learned about the Great Wall is that the Mutianyu section was designed with defensive fortifications on both sides of the wall. The battlements have merlons (crenellated parapets) and arrow loops on both the interior and exterior of the watchtowers and the ramparts.Signal towers dot the mountains near the wall.Seeing the views from the watchtowers, I think I would have been okay with living there.The Mutianyu section of the Great Wall was built mainly with granite instead of the brick, tile, limestone and rammed earth that make up other parts of the wall. This is one of the reasons that it is the best-preserved section of the Wall.This is more of what I had imagined the top of the wall to be like: smooth and flat with sloping curves. Not the mountain of stairs we ended up climbing. Interestingly, the Wall varies between 23-26 feet high and 13-17 feet wide. I had expected it to be tall (which it is), but hadn’t expected it to be so wide. It’s wide enough that two small cars could drive past each other in some parts! Almost to the end! The tower in the upper left corner is where we turned around and went back. We could have gotten down off the wall by that watchtower, but we wanted to go back down by where our driver was waiting for us. Sometimes it felt like the Wall was never going to end. lol The mountains in this area are just beautiful. I would love to go back in the fall and see how fiery the mountains become when the leaves change colors. So close! And this was the end. The last tower of our journey. If we pressed on and went through the tower, we would have ended up at an area where people could ride down to the bottom of the mountain. But that’s not what we wanted to do, so we turned around and trekked back to where we started. With all of our stops for pictures and such, it took us about two and a half hours from the time we got off the chair lifts until we reached this tower. On the way back to the start, we came across this sign. It reads: Founded in 1404, number 14 tower was [a] border command post at that time. Though these tower[s] were in different shapes, such as a broad bedroom in the middle, its circumference was surrounded by corridors–. gyrus shaped is the common feature.” According to Miriam-Webster online, a gyrus is “a convoluted ridge between anatomical grooves”. Anyone want to take a guess at what the sign is trying to say? We also went down to explore this tower. It looked like all the rest of them. lol No clue what this sign means. Google has come up empty.Almost back to the beginning. In the cradle of the mountains you can see a valley with a small village in it. That is Mutianyu Village and before the Wall became a popular tourist destination, this village was struggling. Even though the Mutianyu section is one of the lesser-visited sections, there are enough tourists here each year to keep the village solvent. There’s even a resort there now. I can’t find anything out about this guy, but he is pretty cool. And, of course, while we were there we had to have photos of us at the Wall. This one was at the beginning when we walked to the end closest to where the chair lifts dropped us off. I’m only a little bit sweaty at this point. Gah. I am SOOOOOO glad Troy doesn’t have this awful goatee anymore. The one he has now is trimmed and well-kept. This was about halfway from the end where our first picture was taken to the far peak where we could go no further. As you can see, I’m very VERY sweaty. lol. It was August and very hot with high humidity. We were very happy we had lots of water in our backpacks.Getting up the Wall we rode a chair lift. We could have done that on the way down, but decided it would be so much more fun if we rode the tobagan! I took this video of my ride down the slide. Towards the end you can hear me yell at someone to slow down....

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How We Almost Didn’t Get to the Great Wall of China

Erin — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 14:39:46 +0000

When you visit China, there are several things you want to see. You want to see the Terracotta Warriors, giant pandas, the Forbidden City and, of course, the Great Wall. When we were in China we planned to spend the majority of our last day at the Great Wall. The first part of our trip had several hiccups, but we’d meticulously planned our last day and felt like everything was going to be perfect. And then we woke up. Scott, Troy and I got up early and made sure we were ready well before our tour guide was supposed to arrive. It was an early day, 7am, but we wanted to get an early start so we could spend a long time up at the Wall. After waiting outside for about 40 minutes, Scott went back inside to call Peter. When he came back out about 10 minutes later he said Peter was running late, but would arrive in 30 minutes or so. Scott ran to an eatery a few streets over, but Troy and I decided to stay close to the hotel in case Peter showed up ‘early’. Eventually he showed up, but not as we’d expected. We were concerned because we had rented a car and one tour guide, not a van and two tour guides. The woman with Peter told us he brought the van so we would be more comfortable and that Peter didn’t speak very good English, so she, Leelee, was along to make sure everything was communicated correctly. Shortly after we left the hotel Leelee said she wanted to make sure we were all on the same page. She said that for 400 RMB she would be taking us to a tea house, the Olympic stadium, a jade exhibition enter, the Badaling section of the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs and a pearl market. I had wanted to go to the Summer Palace as well, but Leelee said there wouldn’t be time to do it all. Scott asked her if there would be time to see the Summer Palace if we skipped the tea house, Olympic stadium, jade exhibition center and pearl market, but Leelee said it was company policy to visit those places and she couldn’t do anything about it. We didn’t have to buy anything at them, but if we could at least spend a few minutes at each one, that would be fine. Troy and I had come across a similar gig in Thailand where the drivers received kickbacks for bringing tourists to certain shops, so we figured we could just play the game, spend a few minutes at each place and then leave, hopefully cutting out enough time to hit the Summer Palace on the way back from the Wall. The first place we stopped was Dr. Tea. It was a cute little tea house where we were taken to a private room to receive a tea demonstration. Once the demonstration was over the demonstrator began showing us different products we could purchase. We weren’t really interested in anything, but she kept telling us she doesn’t get paid unless we purchase something and that we should show our appreciation for her demonstration by buying tea or a mug. At our continued refusal to purchase, she got quite upset. After we went outside she stormed over to Leelee and they started arguing in Chinese. When Leelee got back in the car, she assured us it was fine that we didn’t purchase anything here, but insisted we HAD to purchase something from the exhibition center and the pearl market. We said we’d think about it. As we drove to the Olympic stadium, Leelee began chatting with us. She asked about our phones, how expensive they were, if we had iphones, how much our cameras cost, what the price of things in the US were and what kind of jobs we had. She repeatedly mentioned how ‘rich’ we were. Eventually, Peter pulled the van off the side of the freeway and Leelee directed us to look out the window. It was the Olympic stadium! That thing is huge. When we just sat in the car and waited for Peter to take us over there, Leelee informed us that this was as close as we would be getting and that we should get out to take a few pictures. We were a little bummed that we weren’t actually GOING to the Olympic stadium, but that just meant we were now on our way to the Great Wall and we were all really excited. Until we got back in the van. Upon buckling ourselves into our seats, Leelee turned around and said she wanted to make sure we were all on the same page. Wait. Didn’t we do this already? Leelee went into a monologue about how we’re only paying 400 RMB for the tour and that we were getting a great deal because we’d gotten a bigger vehicle and two tour guides instead of one. She then informed us that the tour company keeps 200 RMB, leaving only 200 RMB left to cover vehicle rental, gas and hers and Peter’s services. After expenses they were going to walk away with nothing, so she wanted us to guarantee them a 200 RMB tip at the end of the day. We said we would guarantee the 400 RMB we had agreed to at the beginning of the day and if we were happy at the end of the day we would give them a tip. She insisted emphatically that we had to guarantee 200 RMB, effectively saying the trip was now 600 RMB instead of 400. We finally agreed to pay 600 RMB if we didn’t have to stop at any more shopping destinations and could just go to the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs and the Summer Palace. Leelee got upset and said we HAD to go to those places and we HAD to purchase something from each one. She insisted we were rich and could afford the small tip they were asking for. One of the things she kept saying was that Americans like to come to China and take advantage of the Chinese and that we should be better than typical Americans. We were taken aback by her comments because 1) we’d been kind and polite to both of them the entire time even though they were almost 2 hours late and 2) we’re not rich. I’m an unemployed college student who saves every penny I make from people reading these posts in order to go on these trips. Most of my clothes and shoes are years old, my camera is an old hand-me-down with functions that don’t work because it’s so old, and I never eat out or go to movies. I kept saying we should just leave and call one of the other cards Scott had picked up, but Scott was still trying to negotiate. We already had a vehicle and a driver and had no certainty that we’d be able to get another one, so he wanted to try to compromise. Leelee would not agree to anything except a price increase for the same tour we’d agreed to in the morning, so were kinda stuck at an impasse. After several minutes or failed negotiating we all decided to grab our things and leave. My friend’s husband had worked in the American Embassy in Beijing for a few years and we decided we’d contact her friend who said he’d help us if we ran into trouble. When we started putting our backpacks on and getting ready to leave, Peter said ‘no leave’ and locked the doors. Seriously, when the doorlocks clicked, I started to panic a little bit. Were we being held hostage?! Were the doors child-locked so we couldn’t open them manually? What on earth was going on??? I was so happy when Scott reached over, manually unlocked the door, and got out. The look on Peter’s face when Scott opened the door was one I will never forget. He was so angry! He and Leelee started yelling at us as we all climbed out, one yelling in English and the other yelling in Chinese. No clue what they were saying, but they were angry. Part of me was worried they would start driving away with me still in the van since I was in the far back row, but Troy reached back and yanked me out of the van as soon as he was out. I think he was worried they might leave, too. Once we were out of the van we bolted down the street. Leelee got out and was screaming after us in English while Peter was yelling after us in Chinese. We had no idea what either one of them was saying, but we knew we just needed to get out of there. After we’d run far enough that they were out of sight, we walked down the freeway for a little, trying to figure out what we were going to do. Eventually we found a bridge that went over the freeway and into town, so we headed that way. We were worried they were going to call the police and we’d be arrest because one of the few words we understood was ‘police’ and we were frightened. Troy gave Kevin, my friend’s contact, a call while we were walking and Kevin promised to find someone who could take us to the Great Wall, but it might take him some time. Feeling better, we walked towards the only thing we recognized: the Olympic stadium, where we stayed, dodging calls from the tour company and waiting for Kevin to call us back. Continue reading here to see the ending to our crazy morning!

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