August 19

Today we had our examinations for Chinese. Honestly, the test was straightforward so I didn’t find it difficult. It was overall pretty fair. After the test we had lunch and got ready to visit the Temple of Heaven. The weather was beautiful, with clear skies, but it was really hot. For that reason, I am somewhat glad that we did not stay the whole day. But while we were there, it was gorgeous. I loved the round design of the temples. Although I was surprised, when I looked inside the temple, it was a much smaller room than I imagined. It was also only one room. For a building so extravagant, I was really expecting more. As we made our way from the summer temple to the winter temple, we passed a lot of decorative buildings along the way. When we arrived at the winter temple, there were only three marble circles stacked atop one another. Apparently the temple burned down some years ago and all that was left was the marble platform of circles that it used to be on. The recurrence of special numbers in each temple was fascinating. I loved the amount of attention that goes in to ancient architecture, and how it painstakingly is done to suit the local religion.