While we were in Beijing, we visited the Summer Palace and Temple of Heaven, both UNESCO World Heritage Sites. It was freezing cold outside, but so worth the trip!

Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests

The Temple of Heaven is a large area, mostly known for this amazing building, which is called the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. Apparently there’s a replica of it at Disney World.

son of heaven, so he represented heavenly authority.

Most historical buildings in China are rectangular buildings with yellow roofs, symbolizing royalty. Buildings that symbolize heaven, like this one, are round and have a blue roof.

It’s completely wooden, and has no nails. The reason it looks like it’s in great shape is becuase it’s not actually old…the original was burned down. Even so, it was pretty magnificent to look at.

Summer Palace

We also visited the Summer Palace, which served as a summer resort for Empress Dowager. The place was enormous – I think we only saw some of it.

I believe this is a temple (?) across Kunming Lake, which is rich with pearls.

Too bad we came during the winter. The lake would have been covered with blooming lotus flowers.

We went down this walkway along the lake.

Each one of the windows on the walkway was a different shape. We saw this motif everywhere – not just in the old buildings in China, but echoed in modern architecture as well.

We then walked down the Long Corridor, which is completely covered with the most intricate paintings.

Each one of those beams has a painting!

This was at the halfway point in the corridor.

This is the Marble Boat.

This is the first time we learned about China’s fascination with rocks. There’s several of these giant rocks that were dug up from the lake, each representing a zodiac animal (squint and turn your head, and you might be able to make something out). We went to a few more gardens in China after this one, and they’re also full of these rocks.

Calligraphy

One of the coolest things we saw on the trip were old men practicing calligraphy at the Summer Palace. They used special brushes with a sponge tip on one end and a plastic bottle filled with water viagra on the other end. This is considered a type of exercise for the elderly.

It looked like he has been doing this for years. He wrote the characters of a poem very quickly, and with absolute perfection. The water would evaporate on the pavement not long after, which made the entire scene magical.

There were other people doing different styles of calligraphy.