Beijing Zoo, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace and Olympic Park

Today is our second to last day in Beijing.  We started it out again with a delicious pastry from the little bakery around the corner.  Our guide then picked us up and we were off to the Zoo!  Sean had been doing some research ahead of time and was extremely excited because he thought we were headed to see the largest number of Pandas in captivity.  What he didn’t realize is that the Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuary houses more than 30% of the world’s Pandas… not the Beijing Zoo.  In fact there were only 3 Pandas at the Beijing zoo.  Although it would have been great to see 50 Pandas, the three we saw were still pretty cute…

Panda #1

Panda #2

Panda #3 (We think he had a rough night)

The next stop of the day was the Temple of Heaven.  The Temple of heaven is 600 years old.  It was visited twice yearly by the emperor; once in the spring to pray for a good harvest and once in the fall to thank the gods for their harvest that year. Now it serves as a park where retired people come daily to “Exercise”.  There was dancing, writing on the side walk and juggling.  We also saw a lot of knitting, cards and chess. This was one of my favorite parts of our trip.  It was wonderful to see so many citizens outside, socializing and staying active!

Outside of the gates

Writing Poetry

My turn

Dancing!

Juggling/Hacky Sack

Standing in the "center of the universe"

Clapping.  Depending on where you stood it
 would echo once, twice, three times, four times or five!

The Emperor's "Walkway". 
He never in fact walked up it.
 Instead he was carried.

The writing on the blue is for the "god of heaven". 
Note there are no pictures as no one knows what
 the god looks like.  There are only symbols

After finishing up at the Temple of Heaven our tour guide took us to the Summer Palace.  The royal family traveled by boat through man made canals from the Forbidden City to the Summer Palace every summer.  The canals were only 12km long but it took several days for the royal family to travel between the two locations.  Summer Palace is built on a man made lake designed to imitate West Lake in Hangzhou.  The grounds were beautiful!

Summer Palace



Boat ride across the Lake



Marble boat

A replicate of the boat the royal family traveled by





After Summer Palace we took the subway to the last stop on our tour, Olympic Park.

Not sure what this height requirement is for? 
We found it inside the subway station...

Here are some pictures from the Olympic Park.

IBM building

Olympic Green Convention Center.  This is where the fencing took place.

Radio Tower

Beijing National Aquatics Center

Beijing National Stadium

IBM again

After a LONG day of site-seeing we bid our guide farewell and headed to dinner with a long lost friend, Nathan.  Nathan and I went to Junior high through college together and I discovered that he is currently living in Beijing!  I was able to contact him and arrange for a meet up!  Nathan and some of his friends graciously took us out for dinner.  It was so much fun catching up with such an old friend.  Thank you Nathan for everything!

Nathan!

Last night in Beijing