Temple of Heaven 4-8-24

Temple of Heaven, Beijing China

As part of our world cruise, a "complimentary" excursion was available to see The Forbidden City and Great Wall of China in one 18-hour tour.  We opted to do an overnight Essence of Beijing tour which included The Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen Square, and the Forbidden City on the first day, staying overnight in Beijing, and then on to the Great Wall of China the next day.  While there were a few bells and whistles that we missed from the World Cruiser tour, the 2 days worked out quite well for us and was an unforgettable experience.  Would go back to China based on our short stay.  Would have loved to see the Terra Cotta soldiers - maybe another trip!

As we disembarked the ship, we had a show at the pier, and then a wonderful welcoming committee as we headed to our tour bus...

 And we made the news in Beijing.  Not quite sure why I cannot insert the link...will do it on facebook when I publish.

Our first stop was The Temple of Heaven (simplified Chinese: 天坛; traditional Chinese: 天壇; pinyin: Tiāntán) is a complex of imperial religious buildings situated in the southeastern part of central Beijing. The complex was visited by the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties for annual ceremonies of prayer to Heaven for a good harvest. The Temple of Heaven was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1998 and was described as "a masterpiece of architecture and landscape design which simply and graphically illustrates a cosmogony of great importance for the evolution of one of the world's great civilizations..." as the "symbolic layout and design of the Temple of Heaven had a profound influence on architecture and planning in the Far East over many centuries." Wikipedia

We could not go inside, but were able to view from the open doorways, Pictures do not do it justice.  As in most of Asia, the grounds were spotless.  Some of my pictures are courtesy of Telah Morrison and Matti Chan, fellow cruisers who are kind enough to share their work with us.  The detail work is amazing to see.

And here we are...

After the temple visit, we had a visit to a jade factory and jewelry store...Mickey was quite nervous.  These were the temples and restaurants on our street.  The jade store was the first stop on our way to the lunchroom.  Like Disneyland, you have shopping opportunities all around.  I came close to some jade jewelry but no negotiating here - it was government owned and very pricey....so Mickey won, no jewelry for me.  I did, however, buy a magnet...

                                                                                

Truly a very lovely building and lobby...and impeccably clean

The jade pieces were incredible, and this is a small sampling of them in the museum attached to the jewelry store

The restaurant was lovely and served family style - forgot to take a picture of the food, but it was delicious, and Mickey was happy with tasting the local foods...I could have sworn that I had a copy of the menu and pictures of the food, but no luck recovering those - though I did find the dessert pic

After lunch, we headed to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City - separate blog for those, and we had these little guys to send us on our way