Temple of Heaven

Sept 14th -- Well, it was another slow morning after a late, exciting night last night. We had to get up this morning and talk to the grandma's and tell them all about it. Once we finally got going and out of the apartment, it was lunch time. We decided to stop by Subway for lunch. We happened to find a Subway in the basement of a nearby office building. After lunch, we walked to the subway station for a trip to the Temple of Heaven Park. After a short ride, we exited the subway right at the east entrance to the park. The park contains some of the most perfect examples of Ming architecture with some unique architectural features. We walked through the park for a few minutes before coming upon the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. This temple is the crowning structure in the park. It is mounted on a three-tiered marble terrace with triple-eaved umbrella roof. While it is beautiful to look at, it is most impressive to learn that the roof is supported on the pillars without the use of cement or nails. While in the courtyard of the temple, we began to notice police pulling out police tape and roping off the area. Having bad flashbacks from our day being trapped around Tien'an Men Square, we wondered what was going on. All of a sudden, 4 guys come running out with a machine on their backs spraying what looked like water on the base of the building. After just a minute they stopped and then began to remove the police tape. It was the weirdest thing, watching them spray water on a marble slab. We aren't sure what it was all about, but think we witnessed a real Chinese fire drill! We then began to proceed south through the park to the Imperial Vault of Heaven. Here we found a lady that was making Chinese paintings of names. They were too cool so we had to get one for Abby and Austin. From here, we proceeded to the Round Alter before making our way out of the park. We walked to the street and caught a taxi to return to our apartment. It was rush hour traffic and we had more than a few moments of panic on our 45 minute journey back to the apartment. Luckily we made it back safe and sound. The kids spent some more time on the playground before heading in to have dinner in the restaurant downstairs. After dinner it was bath and bed time.