Speculations from China: Day Before Shane

Shane actually missed his flight to Beijing due to bad weather in Nashville, so the day he was supposed to come I did some sightseeing instead to cheer myself up. As I've mentioned in a previous post, I tried to go to the National Museum, but they were out of tickets, so I went further west to visit one of the few Daoist Temples in Beijing, called DDD Temple. To the untrained eye, it looked very similar to many Buddhist temples that I have seen in China, but there were some differences even to me. The art and carvings on the god statues and furniture in the temples was noticeably different; fewer geometric designs than in Buddhist temples and more realistic carvings, many in relief style. There were also many flowers in every temple room. I also thought that the god statues looked less scary than in Buddhism and more realistic, but they were still made out of gold or had red faces, so were definitely stylistic to some degree. There were many similarities as well; incense burning in front of every temple, mats for kneeling, and the same general layout with a central axis of temples begetting temples behind them flanked by minor temples on the sides. The whole complex had a nice garden and it was a nice retreat from the crowds of Beijing as there were barely any visitors.

One of the temple buildings with various gods.

Sutras, or oodles of miniature holy men, each with a little light.

Monks do laundry too.

The Daoist temple also had a ancient Daoist Chinese medicine doctor's office, complete with modern-day patients!

At the entrance to the temple complex was a brass gong with a bell in the middle. People threw tokens at it for good luck.

After the temple, I walked back east and came out at Qian'men, one of the only remaining ancient gates to the old city. It stands at the southern edge of Tian'anmen Square and you can have a good view of Mao's Mauseleum from the top. There is also a quasi-interesting museum inside about the old city walls and gates.

On the way home, I stopped at the Beijing Urban Planning Exhibition Hall, which had many strange exhibits glorifying Beijing. There was a neat map of the future Beijing metro, which is going to be HUGE as well as an entire floor taken up with a scale model of the city. It was actually very interesting to look at as an inhabitant of the city, I even found my apartment building! It was cool to see how everything is connected from the viewpoint of a really low-flying airplane. I don't think it would be nearly as neat for a visitor to Beijing who had no experience with the city, so I was glad Shane wasn't there for that bit, although I was overall very sad that I missed a day of hanging out with him. But never fear, he managed to catch the plane the next day and arrived only a day late ready for Chinese adventure!