Temple of Heaven and Some Architecture

Sunday was a trip to the Temple of Heaven with Candy, a coworker from Horizon. I got a bit lost and arrived late, but found her, and we went in. Like other parks on weekends, especially in the mornings, lots of folks were out in the park, practicing what outdoor activities they liked. Lots of singing, dancing, etc:
Some Dancing...
Singing...
Some Strange and Elegant Sport

We went by all the major sites, though with a strange sense of blazing speed:
The Temple of Heaven
Proving to Myself I Was There
The Temple's Plaque

The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest is an ancient part of the Temple in which the Emporer had the obligation of performing a wacky and complicated ritual, full of animal sacrifice and fire:
The Temple's Most Popular Part

Heading south, we got some good views of some excellent gates:
Gates to What? I don't Know.


This altar-looking platform, with 9 steps, is apparently quite significant. I didn't remember why:
A Very Expensive Plaza

We then went and got lunch at one of Beijing's xiaochidian, or snack shops. She decided to order some famous Beijing dishes for me to try, despite the fact that outsiders almost never like them. Why are they famous?

This terrifying mess was literally a soup of many pig organs, including stomach, heart, tongue, liver, intestine. The liver was by far the worst part. Tasted like toxic chalk. Behind it, sweets that seemed to be more Candy's realm than mine (she did not want to try the soup, she'd already tried):
Delicacy, baby.

These next two dishes were not quite as offensive, but were offensive nonetheless. The bowl of white stuff is some sort of soy concoction (it's not like soy milk, it's more like rancid tofu) that is supposed to be healthy for you. The further bowl was either some terrible seafood or some more intestine. One dipped it in sesame sauce, almost as an apology to its own taste.


These two dishes were decent; the rings (which I hoped would be a bit like onion rings) had no taste and the chicken had this strange sourness that gold old pretty quickly. But it was at least edible.


so that was an adventure. Here is my torturer, my lunchtime inquisitor:
"You Like It?"

The walk home was a victory in architechture. Some good stuff:
Beijing Normal University
An Apartment Complex
Something Under Construction