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The content of this blog does not reflect the positions of the Peace Corps and is solely the responsibility of the author.

In Which I Don't Deserve Things

Beijing was great, Beijing was beautiful, and we stayed at a hotel that fulfilled all possible Asian stereotypes in the most beautiful way possible.  I'm a dirty Peace Corps bum, I should be thrown out of such a place on grounds that I would steal the towels!  Instead, I was actually staying in this lovely place with peacock curtains on all the doors.  




Because regular sinks are boring.  


The hotel breakfast provided pig buns.  Pig buns!  Cute animal-shaped
food is an underrated nutritional requirement.  
In the evenings, we could sit in the very nappable hotel lounge ordering plate after plate of dumplings and glass after glass of wine, and pester the waitress about her views on fate and True Love.  Amazingly, she seemed to really like us despite this.

When we weren't at the hotel annoying the staff with our inane questions on their philosophy of life we got to go admire lovely things like the Sky Temple, Tiantan.












It's an imperial temple with less impressive side temples, and ritualistic things happen in all the temples.





There's also places to burn things, ritualistically.






There's a special hall where the emperors went to not eat and not have sex very ritualistically before going to the sky temple.

This is the hall of simplicity.  It's simple because it has a dome instead of pillars.

The fasting hall has a bell.  The bell is pretty.
There is a circular mound with a number of steps which are significant in several of the different ways they can be added.   On the center stone, one's voice becomes "resonant and sonorous" and also apparently encourages people to take turns taking photos of themselves on the center stone.  Which I didn't do.


Surrounding all the buildings of the Sky Temple was a giant park, which included giant juniper trees.  I hadn't even realized Juniper came in trees.  

Next, once I get around to uploading more pictures, the very musical museum at the back of the Sky Temple.  Stringed instruments with snakeskin!  Giant conductor wands!

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