26/9/12
This is our fourth day in Beijing, China.
Our morning agenda is to visit the altar that Dynast Kings used to praise the heavens once every year, the "Sky Altar" (天坛).
Today, the garden surrounding the altar is converted into a park used for all sorts of activities by the locals. Retired citizens came here to practice calligraphy on the garden's mosaic floor with a big brush and water, old and young couples enjoy dancing together with their partners,
Some are kicking shuttlecock, line dancing, sewing, weaving and there's many more activities happening at the park. As the retired citizens made up most of the people using the park, the place is also known as the Senior citizen recreational park.
The altar itself as mentioned before is surrounded by two layers of wall, the outer is a square wall, where as the inner, a circling wall. The altar itself made of some kinda white stone block sculpted with dragon weaving and can be seen all over itself, the floor tiles are in multiplications of 9 all the way to 81. The center, a single "echo stone" is the place where former kings stood to converse with the heaven above.
There are also several other building surrounding the altar for keeping records of all the kings whom made their prayers in the past or serve as a resting building for the kings when they visit, all are quite well kept until this day.
These buildings are made up of one circular one in the center and two rectangular buildings at the both side, these are also surrounded but only one circled wall known as the "echo wall".
Scribblings and graffiti however can be seen on these echo wall, as in the past China's disinterest in these heritages pay little attention to them. Today the republic invest many in preserving what's left of the Dynasty era as they had certainly learned a lesson to protect as many of these heritage as possible, since they serve great value in tourism.
After lunch - which we were also served the pungent smelling delicacy “臭豆腐” - we set out to “秀水街”，a mall famous for its counterfeit products, shirts, jackets, dresses, shoes, accessories, electronics, souvenirs.
We stopped here for more than one hour where we shop the Beijing way. Much of the progress, I have already mentioned in the previous post.
Apart from the obscenely announced price tags on all the products, all items on sale can be reduced to a meager 1/5,1/4, or even 1/3 of the original price as quoted depending on your negotiation skill.
The amazing things is, all these counterfeits are none the second to their genuine product, though the lack in quality can definitely be seen when using these cheap products.
The locals and Foreigners can be seen arguing with the sales person about how they bought a inferior items, and I doubt they are able to get any reimbursement.
It is here that we are able to learn very important lessons in how communications are in China.
We left the mall by 3.15pm, heading to the airport next to embark on our next destination, Dayong airport, ZhangJiaJie, Hunan, China. We will be having evening tea in the airport lounges and dinner will be on our flight, had we not received a 2 hours long delay, penned up inside the crammed airplane seats. By the time we reached Dayong airport, it is already past midnight where only a few airport personnel waited for our flight to arrive, the airport were really simple, ZhangJiaJie is a very small place in China's scale.
This is our fourth day in Beijing, China.
Our morning agenda is to visit the altar that Dynast Kings used to praise the heavens once every year, the "Sky Altar" (天坛).
Today, the garden surrounding the altar is converted into a park used for all sorts of activities by the locals. Retired citizens came here to practice calligraphy on the garden's mosaic floor with a big brush and water, old and young couples enjoy dancing together with their partners,
Some are kicking shuttlecock, line dancing, sewing, weaving and there's many more activities happening at the park. As the retired citizens made up most of the people using the park, the place is also known as the Senior citizen recreational park.
The altar itself as mentioned before is surrounded by two layers of wall, the outer is a square wall, where as the inner, a circling wall. The altar itself made of some kinda white stone block sculpted with dragon weaving and can be seen all over itself, the floor tiles are in multiplications of 9 all the way to 81. The center, a single "echo stone" is the place where former kings stood to converse with the heaven above.
There are also several other building surrounding the altar for keeping records of all the kings whom made their prayers in the past or serve as a resting building for the kings when they visit, all are quite well kept until this day.
These buildings are made up of one circular one in the center and two rectangular buildings at the both side, these are also surrounded but only one circled wall known as the "echo wall".
Scribblings and graffiti however can be seen on these echo wall, as in the past China's disinterest in these heritages pay little attention to them. Today the republic invest many in preserving what's left of the Dynasty era as they had certainly learned a lesson to protect as many of these heritage as possible, since they serve great value in tourism.
After lunch - which we were also served the pungent smelling delicacy “臭豆腐” - we set out to “秀水街”，a mall famous for its counterfeit products, shirts, jackets, dresses, shoes, accessories, electronics, souvenirs.
We stopped here for more than one hour where we shop the Beijing way. Much of the progress, I have already mentioned in the previous post.
Apart from the obscenely announced price tags on all the products, all items on sale can be reduced to a meager 1/5,1/4, or even 1/3 of the original price as quoted depending on your negotiation skill.
The amazing things is, all these counterfeits are none the second to their genuine product, though the lack in quality can definitely be seen when using these cheap products.
The locals and Foreigners can be seen arguing with the sales person about how they bought a inferior items, and I doubt they are able to get any reimbursement.
It is here that we are able to learn very important lessons in how communications are in China.
We left the mall by 3.15pm, heading to the airport next to embark on our next destination, Dayong airport, ZhangJiaJie, Hunan, China. We will be having evening tea in the airport lounges and dinner will be on our flight, had we not received a 2 hours long delay, penned up inside the crammed airplane seats. By the time we reached Dayong airport, it is already past midnight where only a few airport personnel waited for our flight to arrive, the airport were really simple, ZhangJiaJie is a very small place in China's scale.
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| Couple dance~ |
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| Sky Altar |
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| "Echo Stone"-acoustic property: amplify your own voice. |
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| Old and young, Line dancing. |
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| Sky Altar Garden |
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| Calligraphy practice. |
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| Silk street, shopping battle. |
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| Go green they say, very interesting this is. |
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| The sculptures are in a very good state even after so long. |
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