Day 3
6/16/10
Visited the Temple of Heaven, quite a place. The temple, along with the major historical architecture of the time, was made of wood. Large Pillars and Stone platforms, as well as ancient cedars and cypress trees all made a very compelling coherent whole in terms of reading the overall layout. In fact, due to the Feng Shui beliefs in imperial site planning since before the ming dynasty, it becomes easier to spot and pick out elements of a site such as this. for example, the main entrance is always from south to the north, and one enters thorugh a procession of gateways, a logical linear movement from one ritual to another, or from more public to more private areas. Folks in China don't care much about weeding, but they have much love and appreciation for their trees and green space. Beijing parks are huge, larger than typical parks in Oakland County Michigan. Trees there easily will be 100+ years old and still putting out leaves.
We had planned on visiting the Forbidden City that day but my mom and I realized very quickly that the scale of our maps was vastly larger than we anticipated. The Temple was a good 2 Kilometers from one end to another and we ended up zig zagging our way through the complex, killing our legs and putting us in no position to do anything else but sleep at the hotel.
Day 4
6/17/10
Today we went and say Tiananmen Square, (the biggest public square in the world, btw), The Forbidden Palace and Beihai GongYuan, the North Sea Park. I remain impressed at the monumental feats that these projects represent, in terms of manpower, coordination, and the resources available. The Forbidden City would seem to be very interesting, the structures large and elegant, and that would be that. What Really struck me was that the palace only took 14 years to build the complex from wood, a 1.25 x 2 km surface area. The spans and columns are massive, and I can only imagine that the emperor didn't permit OSB or 2x4's in the process.
Beihai Gongyuan, which we visited after a hard rain, was truly beautiful, as it integrated fantastic structures and scenic constructions into a very comprehensive work in traditional gardening and landscape design. The procession across the lake and the sleepy complex of restaurants and pavilions on the island park made for a relaxing contrast to the hustle and bustle of all the attractions we went to. So far, it has been the most memorable and enjoyable attraction yet.
We visited a Hutong (a closed chinese neighborhood of adjacent courtyard residences connected by alleyways, which would be another lengthy blog entry.
To equalize the high points of our day, we went to the infamous Silk Market, where you can pick up fake merchandise like north faces, columbia, polo, nike and adidas, as well as a myriad of other off-brands. Everything can be had cheap... if you know how to bargain. I got a knock-off set of Celtic FC apparrel for a good price, but I probably still got cheated because I don't know how to bargain down. As my mom tells me, there are cute girls selling in the stands but they'd cut your pockets to get to your money. It's a part of Chinese culture that I hadn't really engaged in ever, and it was wierd.
Beijing Olympic Park tomorrow! BEAWW.
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