Temple of Heaven

Today we decided to visit the Temple of Heaven. After our breakfast, which was baguette with butter, we took the subway to go there. We were accompanied by Li and one of his friends, unfortunately I forgot his name. The subway was quite full, no possibility to sit down after our exhausting visit of the English Corner yesterday. But nevertheless we arrived at our destination and payed 35 Yuan (5 €) entrance fee.

First we visited the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, according to our travel guide the hall is the „most complete and greatest building of Chinese architecture“. Here are some impressions of it:

The ancient emperors sacrificed here to pray for good weather and a rich harvest.

Afterwards we walked through the beautiful park to the next building, which was the the Palace of Abstinence. The emperor would prepare here before the sacrifice took place. Because we would have to pay another entrance fee, we decided to just have a look from the outside.

Our next stop was the Imperial Vault of Heaven with the Echo Wall and the Circular Mound Altar.

After we took a look around we left the park and searched for the Hongqiao market, according to our travel guide there would be cheap electronics, clothes and food. And that was right. On five or six floors were a lot of small shops which sold „all original“ goods. While walking through the shops we were asked by everyone if didn’t need a wallet or some beats headphones. It was really funny to negotiate the prices, and I actually bought a beats pill for 60 Yuan (10€). The starting price was 285 Yuan… And it actually works quite well, Bluetooth pairing works properly, and the sound is OK.

From the top of the building we had a nice look towards the Temple of Heaven:

For lunch we stayed at the market and ate at McDonald’s, the double spicy chicken burger is just too good.

On our way back we stopped at our local Lotte Mart and bought some life essentials, for example beer, which costs 0,25€ per 330ml can. After we took a shower we missed yesterday because of our English Corner visit, we had dinner at Chinese restaurant. It looked a bit like an American diner, but sold mostly noodles and dishes with rice. Afterwards we took a look at the dormitory of Li and helped/watched him playing a game.

Now a thunderstorm started and it is also heavily raining, let’s see how the weather will be tomorrow.

Till then, bye bye