Showing 1-15 of 15 results
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Confucius Temple & Imperial College
Long neglected like a piece of unloved bric-a-brac, the arid Confucius Temple offers a quiet sanctuary from Běijīng's smoggy streets and snarling traffic. West of the Confucius Temple stands the Imperial College (Guózǐjiān), where the emperor expounded the Confucian classics to an audience of thousands - an annual rite. Some of Běijīng's last remaining páilou (decorative archways) bravely survive in the hútòng outside (Guozijian Jie).
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Ditan Park
Site of imperial sacrifices to the Earth God, Ditan lacks the splendour of the Temple of Heaven Park but is worth a stroll if you've just been to nearby Lama Temple. During Chinese New Year, a temple fair is held here, and in winter, a sparkling ice festival is staged. The park's large altar ( fāngzé tán ) is square in shape, symbolising the earth.
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Dongyue Temple
The morbid Taoist shrine of Dongyue Temple is an unsettling albeit fascinating experience. With its roots poking deep into the Yuan dynasty, what's above ground level has been revived with care and investment. Dedicated to Tài Shān, the most easterly of the five Taoist peaks of China, Dongyue Temple is an active place of worship where Taoist monks attend to a world entirely at odds with the surrounding glass and steel high rises.
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Fayuan Temple
In a lane east of Niujie Mosque, this temple dates back to the 7th century and remains busy with monks and worshippers. Now the China Buddhism College, the temple was built to honour Tang soldiers who had fallen during combat against the northern tribes. From the entrance of Niujie Mosque, walk left 100m then turn left into the first hútòng . Follow the hútòng for about 10 minutes, and you'll arrive at Fayuan Temple.
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Great Bell Temple
This temple houses the biggest bell in China, 6.75m tall and weighing a hefty 46.5 tonnes. The bell is inscribed with Buddhist sutras, comprising more than 227,000 Chinese characters, and decorated with Sanskrit incantations. Clamber up to the circular hall, where there's a small exhibition on bell casting (with some English captions), and chuck a coin through the opening in the top of the bell for luck.
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Lama Temple
With three richly worked archways and five main halls (each one taller than the preceding one), revolving prayer wheels, multi-coloured glaze tiles, magnificent Chinese lions, tantric statuettes and hall boards decorated with Mongolian, Manchu, Tibetan and Chinese, the Lama Temple is Běijīng's most magnificent Buddhist temple.
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Miaoying Temple White Dagoba
The Yuan dynasty white dagoba of the Miaoying Temple is similar to that in Beihai Park. The highpoint of a visit here, however, is its riveting collection of thousands of Tibetan Buddhist statues. A population of bronze luóhàn figures also inhabits the temple. There is liberal use of English captions.
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Niujie Mosque
With a history dating back to the 10th century, this recently renovated Chinese-styled mosque is Běijīng's largest. A burial site for a number of Islamic clerics, the grounds of the mosque are given over to a profusion of greenery, flourishes of Arabic, the main prayer hall (only Muslims can enter), women's quarters and the Building for Observing the Moon (Wàngyuèlóu), from where the lunar calendar was calculated.
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North Cathedral
Also called the Cathedral of Our Saviour, this august cathedral is one of Běijīng's four main churches and the only one located within the grounds of the Imperial City. Built in 1887, the church was badly damaged during the Cultural Revolution before serving as a factory warehouse. Despite being covered in gaudy grey, flaking paint, the cathedral is well worth a look-see.
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South Cathedral
Běijīng's South Cathedral was built in 1703 on the site of the house of Matteo Ricci, the Jesuit missionary who introduced Catholicism to China. The church has been destroyed three times, including being burnt down in 1775, and endured a trashing by anti-Christian forces during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. The church is now decorated with modern stained glass, fake marbling, portraits of the Stations of the Cross and cream-coloured confessionals.
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St Joseph's Church
A crowning edifice on Wangfujing Dajie and one of Běijīng's four principal churches, St Joseph's Church is also known locally as the East Cathedral. The church is a testament to the long history of Christianity in China. A large piazza in front swarms with children playing; white doves photogenically flutter about and Chinese models in bridal outfits wait for the sun to emerge before posing for magazine shots.
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White Cloud Temple
White Cloud Temple, once the Taoist centre of northern China, was founded in AD 739. It's a lively, huge and fascinating temple complex of shrines and courtyards, tended by distinctive Taoist monks with their hair twisted into topknots. Today's temple halls date principally from the Ming and Qing dynasties.
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Wuta Temple
The highly distinctive Indian-styled Wuta Temple (Five Pagoda Temple) is topped by its five magnificent namesake pagodas. The exterior of the main hall is decorated with a tangle of dorjes (Tibetan sceptres), hundreds of images of Buddha and legions of beasts, amid traces of red pigment that can still be discerned.
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Zhihua Temple
This rickety shrine is thick with the authentic flavours of old Peking, having eluded the slapdash renewal that invariably precedes entrance fee inflation and stomping tour groups. The Scriptures Hall encases a venerable Ming dynasty revolving wooden library and the Ten Thousand Buddhas Hall (Wànfó Diàn) is an enticing two floors of miniature niche-borne Buddhist effigies and cabinets for the storage of sutras.
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Zhongshan Park
This pleasant park sits west of the Gate of Heavenly Peace, with a section hedging up against the Forbidden City moat. A refreshing prologue or conclusion to the magnificence of the adjacent imperial residence, the park was formerly the sacred Ming-style Altar to the God of the Land and the God of Grain (Shèjìtán), where the emperor offered sacrifices. The square altar ( wǔsè tǔ ) remains, bordered on all sides by walls tiled in various colours.
Showing 1-15 of 15 results
