Rediscovering Eden
Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth
Would care to know my name
Would care to feel my hurt
Who am I, that the bright and morning Star
Would choose to light the way
For my ever wandering heart
Not because of who I am
But because of what You've done
Not because of what I've done
But because of who You are
I am a flower quickly fading
Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean
A vapor in the wind
Still You hear me when I'm calling
Lord, You catch me when I'm falling
And You've told me who I am
I am Yours, I am Yours
Who Am I, that the eyes that see my sin
Would look on me with love
and watch me rise again
Who Am I, that the voice that calmed the sea
Would call out through the rain
And calm the storm in me
Whom shall I fear
Whom shall I fear
I am Yours
dailies
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
天坛-260309
-10:24 AM
Today PJ and I had the afternoon off and so we decided to go to the Temple of Heaven aka 天坛, which was just a few bus stops away from the hospital. The Temple of Heaven is a place the Emperor uses to pray to the heavens for good harvests.
We saw this man along the way, selling kites or whatever you call those things, on the overheadbridge. He was showing what his product could do and we were wondering what if the wind stopped blowing. The vehicles below will suddenly have kites under their wheels or at their windscreen.
天坛公园的售票处。
Cute little boys playing. The park is really clean and I'm so glad to spot a park without spits and dog poo.
A common sight in China-an elderly man using a small er, mop, dipped in oil, doing calligraphy on the floor. But it was the only thing of the entire day that really interest me enough to stand for a good 10 minutes while he explained the words and how 繁体changed to 简体.
美丽（its the 2 words rightmost)
I was so amazed to watch people actually dancing in the park. The park will play some music and people will just come in and dance in beat. And no, the pair above do not know each other. They just dance together! When will we ever see this in Spore? Reminds me of my days in Yunnan where we joined the local folks for night line-dancing!
This is husband and wife dancing.
What so special about this walkway? Well, it smells of cattle so strongly and true enough, it leads to a place used to keep and slaughter cattle used as offerings to the god of heaven. The place for slaughtering is called 神厨、宰牲亭.
Along the walkway was this guy playing the saxaphone! I've always though guys that can play the sax look quite cool! It would be nice if someone can play it for me (hints*):P.
Do you see people playing chap-teh at the background? Yupp. Its a common game at the park and everyone seems to be really good with it.
As we walked along another walkway called the Long Walkway(长廊), we saw people singing karaok! They brought their own set of stereos and microphones. And some are really good!
祈年殿
The top reminds me of flying saucepans.:P
Its a pity that we cant go into any of the buildings.
Awaiting the butcher.
A model made of wood.
Something I found interesting. It tells us the meaning of the different structures build on the steps leading to 祈年殿.
I wonder where that leads to.
And we decided to find out.
古稀门
This little door has a funny story to it. Its build by 乾隆 when he was 70 years old. Due to his old age, he couldn walk so far from the main enterance to 祈年殿 and thus, he decided to build this small side-door to shorten his walking distance. However, to prevent his descendants from misusing this door, he gave a verdict that the door can only be used when the emperor is 70 years old and above. Essentially, he was the only king to live till 70 and still be on the throne, so the door was his exclusively.
It was only when we were walking on this long bridge（丹陛桥）did we realise that we were walking in the opposite direction to that of the emperors. You see:
4865
The 祈年殿 looked smaller and higher as we moved further away but actually according to history, the emperor was suppose to walk towards 祈年殿 so that it would be as if the emperor was walked upwards(cos the ground is more elevated as you move forward towards祈年殿) and forward. Notice that the bridge has 3 paths. The one leftmost is for 天子，the center one is for the god of heaven, the rightmost one is for the officials.(如此设计建造，一则象征皇帝步步高升，寓升天之意；二则以表示从人间到上天有遥远的路程。 路面中为“神道”，左为“御道”，右为“王道”（陪臣走的路）。)
At the end of the bridge, or rather the start.
This is 皇穹宇 and the wall surrounding it is called 回音壁 and the wall is so called cos one day, 乾隆 heared 2 frogs (or chicken?) croaking loudly and decided to find out they were so loud. He realise that the animals were next to this circular wall which amplified their sound. Hmm.
Inside.
On 养心石。
Leading to 圜丘坛.
And everyone was pushing man! PJ took 9 takes (i took even more) before we got a satisfactory picture of herself on the stone. The people there love to take pictures with one million people standing on the same one stone. -.-.
Birdie.
I must have completed 12km walkathon cos we walked back and forth to get to all the places.Checked.
斋宫-closed when we arrived.
Trying to be funny with this weird tree I saw, but was too short! I have a thing for strange trees.
Twin Towers.
An uber low bench that we rested after 10km?haha~
It was closing.
A band and choir in the park to end our day!
How wonderful, How beautiful, Jesus Your name, name above every name, Jesus!
