Beijing part II. Temple of Heaven (天壇)

In the beginnig of the Chinese Dinasties, around the year 2070 B.C. (it began with the Xia Dynasty, and according to Confucius (孔夫子) (551 BC – 479 BC), the Emperor was the Son of Heaven (天子- where 天 means "heaven" and 子 , son), and he was the leader who had to rule on earth as his father did on heaven.
In the ancient China, they thought that the earth was squared whereas heaven was round, and that's why coins in the ancient China where rounded on the outside and they had a squared hole in the middle.
So, logically the Temple of Heaven had to be round. It was built by the Emperor Yongle (永樂) (2 May 1360 – 12 August 1424) during the Ming Dinasty (1368- 1644), between the 1406 and the 1420. This Emperor was also the responsible for the construction of the Forbidden City.

It's a taoist temple and has a room for the Heaven God, and it was visited by the emperors of the Ming and Qing dinasties, the last two dinasties of China.

The funny thing is that our tour didn't include this visit, so we asked our tour guide to take us there to see it. When we arrive there we met a lot of chinese dancing in the park next to the Temple. The ticket has a discount for old people. We also saw a lot of old people near the Temple playing card games.

My chinese experience!!! Beijing!!! I little bit of art!!!

I like history, and chinese history is one of my favorites. I've been to Beijing (北京) twice (counting this last time) and I've been to Shanghai (three times) and I've never been before to Xian (西安). So, by far the place I liked the most this time in the People's Republic of China (中华人民国) of course, was Beijing (北京).
I had a trip with my parents, my father's cousin, his wife, their children, and two more couples (my parents' friends). As soon as they arrive, we went to a hutong, which is an ancient neighborhood, and we lived in a hotel inside this old part of the city...It was amazing. Recently, I had a problem with the format of 400 pics that I had transfered to my PC, but I couldn't open them, sorry i don't have pics of mostly all Beijing.


We had a great time in Beijing, we had a tourist guide guy who is able to speak in spanish, and we went Beijing sightseeing. The forbidden city, the Summer Palace, Teh Temple of Heaven, the Great Wall... 


Is a city where history, culture and art mix together.


We also had time to visit the district 798, contemporary art fill the streets, and cars.

I don't know how but somebody went into an exposition, and they were serving food as well as white wine. The food was from the "Flo restaurant", I was very proud to say this food was from Barcelona, but they quickly told me that Flo is from France, not Catalonia....

Anyway, we ate a little bit there. The exposition was about pictures of korean people ( most of them men or men dressed like women) and the photographer was french.


The streets were also fulled with art and other species alike.

 The first Xi'an warrior...................................................................nude I've ever seen!!!

 Animals.....

and more animals!!!

好久不见！！！hao3 jiu3 bu4 jian4!!! We have not meeting each other for a long time!!! Cuánto tiempo sin vernos!!!

This is the good way to tell a friend "hello" again, cause it has passed a long time since you meet him or her for the last time. I'm sorry. I'm very sorry for my followers, a few good ones, cause it's been ages since my last post. Actually, I had the pleasure of having one of my followers attending my wedding in Taiwan, Pere thanks for coming and sorry about the game.

I've been busy (忙 - mang2) since my last post. I have had problems to connect to my facebook and to my blog for 10 days (travelling in China), and then I have had my wedding, another trip but this time around my beloved Taiwan, with my beloved family and some friends of them.

It's been a lot of fun!!! I have thousands of pics, not yet to be published. Lots of posts to be published.
Now, I'm a little bit busy with my Internet University, I'm trying to catch up again.

So far, I only can tell that all the trips were very amazing and I had a lot of fun. As they say:"Postum festum, pestum". So, I'm feeling sad cause my wife went back to Barcelona, as well as my parents who travelled with me around China and Taiwan. But, as they say in Spain: "Que me quiten lo bailado!!!", in other words: "I enjoyed a lot, so although I'm sad now, these lasts days I was terribly happy!!!".

It was like knocking on heavens door, as Bob Dylan says. Bob has been to Taipei in a concert yesterday!!!

I put some appetizer for you to follow my adventures and disadventures of this whole trip. Is the Temple of Heaven in Beijing (北京) , literally: the capital of the north. In the ancient China, they thought that the earth was squared and heaven was circular, that's why they built this circular building for the God of Heaven (and the emperor was the son of this God).