Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Lama Temple, Hutong District Rickshaw, and Tiāntán

Lama Temple (Buddhist Temple)

    Just like every other day we met Deane in our hotel lobby at 8am, and we make our journey on the crowded streets of Beijing to the Lama Temple. It's not a temple for lamas, but actually for Buddhist. Side note: What about Confucius, he is like synonymous with China. Yep, his temple is down the road and just like the Lama Temple minus the incense and swap Buddha with Confucius.
See... Balance
   The first thing I noticed was that everything was in complete balance, like the gardens and the buildings. The second thing you will notice is the overwhelming scent of incense! So much incense... When people come to worship/pay homage/whatever they do all of them light  2-8 sticks of incense for each temple they go to. hundreds of people * 20'ish temples * 2-8 sticks = headaches caused by incense 
     Each one of the temples had a purpose. Most of the central temples had Buddhas in them. One of the temples had a Buddha 18 meters tall made of sandalwood, and his toe nail was bigger than my hand.

Rickshaw Tour (forever giving people the feel of royalty)

    Rickshaw? Yep, not only does it make you feel like royalty, but it is also a good way to see an area. We got to see people going about their daily lives, so many different construction techniques, regular 'non-touristy' markets and stores, experience the ever changing variety of smells of cramped China, and most importantly we got to eat at Mr. Wong's house!
Meatballs... Bottom right
    Mr. Wong learned to cook from his grandfather who honed his skills when he cooked for the last emperor of China! Mr. Wong's specialty is meatballs. And they have, so far, been my favorite thing I've had in China, and they were uh-may-zing!!! We had lunch in his dining room where we talked to him and his wife as they periodically checked on us to make sure we were happy (his words). I really enjoyed that we ate like typical average people using nothing but a bowl and chopsticks; our tour guide showed us how to do this. First, you fill the bowl 2/3 with sticky rice, and as you want something from the family style (large portions in the center of the table) you grab it with your chopsticks and put it on top of the rice in your bowl. This method leaves a little puddle of a savory mix of sauces and rice in the bottom of your bowl to finish the meal with. yum....

Tiāntán / Temple of Heaven

    The Temple of Heaven (Tiāntán) is one of four temples: Temple of Heaven, Earth, Sun, & Moon. It is the best preserved, only one open to the public, and best looking of the four, ergo we go there. In china the number nine is the largest heavenly number, this means that everything in Tiāntán is in multiples of nine. Three sets of nine steps, three rings of nine, eighteen, and twenty seven stones around one central heavenly stone, nine incense burners in a row, trashcans in groups of three, and nine sacrifice stations in one of the three temples.
    After you make your way through the first gate you are confronted with three paths of beautiful white stone. The center, the largest, is for the god of the heaven (they didn't know who, just that they should worship something), the left path is for the emperor, and the right is for a select few of the emperor's family. Side note: before opened to the public the only people that were allowed to see in Tiāntán were the emperor and family. If any common people were to enter the gate they would be killed. At the center, of the three rings of stones I mentioned earlier, is a  raised platform with a circular stone in the middle. The stone is where only the emperor would stand and pray, this makes a great photo opp for the Chinese that visited, and way too long a wait for foreigners who didn't care as much to stand on a stone.
    Just like each temple we've seen they all kind of look the same, but this time the roofs were blue.

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