Though today was our free day, most of the group decided to go with Krysta to the Temple of Heaven and the Pearl Market. We took the subway for the first time, which was actually really pleasant. The Beijing subway system was really clean and understandable – the stops were announced in Chinese and English and each car had an LED display that showed what stop we were at and which we were going to, which was really helpful. The high quality of the subway is probably because of the city’s efforts to seem modernized for the Olympics, but I’m glad it benefitted me two years later!
The Temple of Heaven is a fairly large park featuring the main temple, which was designed for the emperor to pray for a good harvest every year. Other buildings in the park were dedicated to other parts of the ritual, including the Abstinence Hall where the emperor fasted before the prayer and a few buildings for animal sacrifice. Rachael, Jay, and I decided to split off from the group and wander around the park at our leisure, and we ended up spending about 2 more hours there than the rest of the group.
Most of the architecture in the Temple of Heaven was nearly identical to the architecture in the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace, so what I found interesting was the use of space. Many people were using the area as a recreational park – people were playing badminton and having picnics. Many performers were there with microphones singing and dancing, which was actually fairly distracting from the sacred space of the temple. My favorite part, however, was the Chinese band that led a large group of Chinese passersby in loudly singing traditional Chinese folk songs. Besides the overall epic atmosphere that it created, it was really fascinating to see all these people unified in singing traditional songs they all know.
After walking through the park, we reunited with the group at the Pearl Market. The name is a little deceiving – I thought it would be only pearls at the market, but instead the first two floors were dedicated to “electronics”, “designer merchandise”, and other such things. The third floor had the less expensive (and probably fake) pearls and the fourth floor had the real pearls. I ended up succumbing to temptation and buying one strand of pearls, since it was so much cheaper than in the United States, like most everything else here.
In the evening, we went to an acrobatic show. Unfortunately, we had to take cabs to the show because there wasn’t enough time to take the subway. The show was really fun to watch, especially when two men spun around on what someone coined “the Wheel of Death”. I think my personal favorite was the Chinese yo-yo act. Afterwards, we took the subway back. Now that I’ve gotten to use the subway with Ruby and Vivienne along to make sure I don’t go horribly astray, I want to venture out again on the subway to explore random parts of the city – possibly to find the smaller, more historical streets that Krysta was telling us about.