After the tour to North Korea, I had about a week to kill before I was expected in the South. Due to lack of funds and having gotten really sick in the DPRK (depending on where you are, it's called Pyongyang belly, Beijing belly, Bali belly, etc. You can probably fill in the details yourself...), I spent the week just hanging out in Beijing. Besides camping on the Great Wall, the rest of my 5-6 days there were relatively quiet. I'd seen all the big, famous sights the first time around (February 2010) so I mostly recovered, puttered around, and saw just a few things.
Some pictures from my random wanderings...
Crickets for sale!
Chaoyang district at night. These shops are all restaurants...I was so bitter that I wasn't well enough to eat a lot in Beijing! The food in North Korea was awful AND it made me sick. Once I got to China I just wanted to eat real food again, but it wasn't meant to be.
One my last day in Beijing I visited Dongyue Temple. Dongyue is a Taoist temple; I don't know much about Taoism but this temple is dedicated to the afterlife, final judgement and reincarnation. There are over 70 'departments' and I think the idea is for the faithful to worship or make offerings to the appropriate department for their afterlife or their ancestors' spirits. There were really good English descriptions everywhere, and the statues and carvings were incredible. It was by far the coolest, most bad-ass temple I've ever visited.
It's a huge place, and I didn't have time to visit every department, but I could contemplate or make offerings at such places as...
"It aims to warn people that should they fail to accomplish good deeds they would only find themselves moving about in water."
"The function of this department is to place those souls who have committed during their life times an equal amount of good deeds and evil deeds into a mid-range rank which is a mammal rank as a warning to those who fail to accomplish good deeds." So you can do a so-so job, die and achieve a 'mid-range' rank as a mammal, or be a terrible person and have a lowly 'water birth' in your next life!
All in all, the coolest but also the spookiest, most disturbing temple I've ever visited. According to the Lonely Planet, there's also a "Department for Implementing 15 Kinds of Violent Death" as well as a hall dedicated to the management of the 18 layers of hell! And these were just the descriptions of the departments! The statues and altars inside were even stranger...
That demon is totally kicking that poor lost soul! Taoists make the Catholic purgatory look downright cheerful!
But I'll leave you with nice pictures of wishes and prayers, to offset the fire and brimstone:
Writing on a wooden block is the Chinese Buddhist equivalent of throwing pennies into a fountain.
Some pictures from my random wanderings...
Crickets for sale!
Chaoyang district at night. These shops are all restaurants...I was so bitter that I wasn't well enough to eat a lot in Beijing! The food in North Korea was awful AND it made me sick. Once I got to China I just wanted to eat real food again, but it wasn't meant to be.One my last day in Beijing I visited Dongyue Temple. Dongyue is a Taoist temple; I don't know much about Taoism but this temple is dedicated to the afterlife, final judgement and reincarnation. There are over 70 'departments' and I think the idea is for the faithful to worship or make offerings to the appropriate department for their afterlife or their ancestors' spirits. There were really good English descriptions everywhere, and the statues and carvings were incredible. It was by far the coolest, most bad-ass temple I've ever visited.
It's a huge place, and I didn't have time to visit every department, but I could contemplate or make offerings at such places as...
"It aims to warn people that should they fail to accomplish good deeds they would only find themselves moving about in water."
"The function of this department is to place those souls who have committed during their life times an equal amount of good deeds and evil deeds into a mid-range rank which is a mammal rank as a warning to those who fail to accomplish good deeds." So you can do a so-so job, die and achieve a 'mid-range' rank as a mammal, or be a terrible person and have a lowly 'water birth' in your next life!
All in all, the coolest but also the spookiest, most disturbing temple I've ever visited. According to the Lonely Planet, there's also a "Department for Implementing 15 Kinds of Violent Death" as well as a hall dedicated to the management of the 18 layers of hell! And these were just the descriptions of the departments! The statues and altars inside were even stranger...
That demon is totally kicking that poor lost soul! Taoists make the Catholic purgatory look downright cheerful!
But I'll leave you with nice pictures of wishes and prayers, to offset the fire and brimstone:
Writing on a wooden block is the Chinese Buddhist equivalent of throwing pennies into a fountain.
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