Beijing 2024 - Temple of Heaven (天坛) Entry and Breakfast

Another day, another JianBing 煎餅 for breakfast. This time I wanted to try a different store slightly nearer to our hotel, but more hidden....Above is what the stall looked like. 

Here is what the JianBing looked like. I actually like this one because it has more herbs in it, but my husband didn't like it. Probably because it also had less meat inside. The first one we tried felt much more luxurious since it has sausage and egg and lots of vegetables. But I've no regret trying a different store. JianBing is such an awesome food on the go. Each cost maybe 2SGD? We would ask the seller to cut it into half for us, and we would each get around 2 pieces as each JianBing can make into 4 portion. So that's breakfast and lunch done! Super economical. Plus it's delicious and easy to carry, taste good hot or cold. Only thing is, I doubt the sauce they put on it is too healthy! But since I'm only there on a short period, I'm gonna eat plenty of it cause I like it :P 

Today we're off to a park, to visit the Temple of Heaven. Slightly different from the Forbidden Palace which was like a palace, Temple of Heaven was like a worship area for the Emperor. A place where he communicates and talk to God and to seek mandate. I've planned to spend around half a day here, and then make our way to NiuJie 牛街 for some muslim food since it was a Friday.

After entering the park entrance area, it leads to this famous long corridor. I've seen this corridor in my father's photos before since he has visited this place before. Being here made me felt connected with him somehow, cause it's like we were walking the same path, but at different time and stage in our life. It was seriously not as crowded as I though it would be. Perhaps all those tourist photos were used to deter people from visiting after all. Or maybe I just picked a very good season to come visit Beijing :)

The nearest point of interest for us was the Divine Kitchen. I thought I would find some food here, lol, but no such luck. It was just a place where they used to prepare the food offering to heaven. Note that there are many entrance point to the Temple of Heaven. I just picked the nearest one to the Metro Station so that I won't get lost walking around finding the entrance. 

There was also some notable well here. I like how wells in China seems to have statues of their own. Some are so famous that they become tourist attraction, or produces such good quality of water that famous products are named after the. For example Longjing Tea is named after Longjing Well, which literally translate to Dragon well. I always thought Longjing Tea was just a type of tea, but now I know it was named after a well! How cold is that! 

At the Divine Kitchen courtyard stood some halls which you can enter and find out more about the ancient custom held here long time back. They don't use it anymore, since China does not have any Emperor anymore.

Ceremonial items are also displayed here along with explanation. 

Drawings of the procession that took place in ancient time when the Emperor was here to perform the ritual.

Here is a different version of the drawing. 

Dragons adorn some of the ceremonial items in teh kitchen. These were all used for heavenly purposes after all, hence heavenly beings were appropriate to be used here. 

And just like today's altar where fresh flowers are placed, in ancient time they half gold lily flowers used.

Selfie of us at our first stop, still looking fresh for the day :)