China Adventures Part 2

Minimalism this time around. Just a simple blogskin, with a very nice song.

Visited the Temple of Heaven upon reaching back Beijing. As you can probably tell, the wind was pretty strong...

A picture with a random local farmer

The scenery was pretty cool though. There was this stone which was touted as the stone that the Emperor of China would stand on to talk to heaven. Obviously, everyone decided that being an Emperor was essential to their way of life. There was a super scrap for that spot on that one rock. Locals, tourists alike. Pretty scary.

The Emperor's relaxation area

Selfie with my chinless face.

Picture of the day

We then went on to Ox Street Mosque after a lunch like any other. It was cool how the mosque looked more like a temple; a reminiscence and reminder of how heavy Han culture is in China, overwriting the Islamic architecture.

An ancient sundial kinda thing

The use of joss stick is now also in Chinese mosques

Afterwards, it was the Xishiku Catholic Church. Pretty cool architecture, seems pretty legit except for the 2 abrupt Han-styled architecture to either sides of the church entrance.

Influence of Han culture as can be seen by the "bamboo" patterned pillars

Well it's $2 cheaper than in Singapore

Night time was pretty cool. Scenery was really nice, I love how urban cities look at night, with all the skyscrapers, the tall buildings, decorated with lights. Then there's that late Beijing sunset at 8pm.

Day 5 and we went to Peking University! It was so cool, they had like this gigantic lake. And by gigantic, I mean, they literally built a park around it with like benches and stuff.

No, this is not a temple. It's a water pumping system inside. Water is collected from rain and via pipelines, and this system then supplies the Peking University lake with water. Apparently if this didn't happen, the lake would have dried up years ago. Shows how much they value this lake.

Must say, the university looked really spacious. It's so much bigger, with so many green spaces everywhere you go. *spams random selection of pictures*

Largest library in Asia. I think. Or was it China?

It's actually real cheap to watch X-men if you're a student

Chinese meals are so salty, it's ridiculous

We then visited the Lama Temple, which housed the tallest Buddha figure at 14m! Didn't get to take a snap of that but it was huge. Of course, being the agnostic I am, I decided not to pray for all of that. But I did respect the place and found it pretty cool and amazing. Mr Seng was questioning why the joss stick urns were rectangular instead of circular, like the ones we see in Singapore.

This 14m tall structure housed the Buddha statue that has a proud Guiness World Record plate outside

Next up was the Confucius temple. Which was, well, pretty academic. It emphasised on the history of examinations, about how people who went for the Big Examinations (gaokao) were suffering so much as compared to us today. Students striving for a place in the university had to undergo the gaokao, which was so torturous.

Apparently, students are locked inside individual cubicles throughout the 3-day gaokao. They are not allowed to interact with others for 3 entire days, and are served food when it was time to eat. It was a tiny cubicle made of concrete.

Imagine students today doing that. I think I'll withdraw after 3 hours...

Everyone's dream: to see their name proudly on the ranking list

Classic Chinglish translation

Almighty Confucius

Day 5 is getting really long. I realised.

Next, we visited the Hutong. It was the last of the Beijing village area, straight in the centre of Beijing. First up was a pretty quick trishaw ride, which was quite enjoyable. The expressions on Nat and my faces when we couldn't understand what the trishaw driver was saying due to his strong Beijing accent.

Our handsome trishaw driver

Anyway, the Hutong is slowly decreasing in size, and residents seem to have been won over by the government.

"We can get a free and bigger house, and a lot of money and benefits. So why not? This place has no value anymore anyway. It's not practical. China is moving forward," commented Mrs Wang, who was the owner of the house we visited in Hutong.

I guess she's right. China is developing so quickly, and while it may be losing its culture, I think it's just a matter of time. It's just that at the pace that China is moving, many are criticising them for losing their culture. But aren't Singapore doing the same? Just because we're smaller and developing slower, doesn't excuse us from the fact that we did the same.