Today I travelled by the train from Zhangzizhonglu in Dongcheng to Tiantandongmen station, Tiantan - literally 'Altar of Heaven', to visit the Temple of Heaven, an iconic temple that is the most perfect example of Ming architecture in the city. Of course to get to it would mean slipping past the hundreds of people in the park trying to sell me: 1) feathered 'ball things', I'd already bought one on Monday and spent an hour humiliating myself playing the game with locals outside the Drum Temple (I think they called the game kick and I'm bringing one back home from the east, move over football); 2) t-shirts, I learnt my lesson about buying t-shirts I can't understand two years ago in Kyoto when I found out after wearing it several times that the symbol meant 'heart of a woman'. After slipping past those I ran into something unexpected, hundreds of middle aged women ballroom dancing in the middle of the park, and dozens more exercising to dance music.
At the peak of the temple I found a small door named the 'Seventy-Year Old Door', apparently in 1779 when Emperor Qianlong was 70 years old he felt his health was deteriorating so the officials opened a small door for him that would shorten the distance of his walk to the ceremonies. But to ensure that his children wouldn't abuse the convenience he issued a decree saying that, "from now on only he among my offspring can enter and exit by this door who has reached the age of 70." None of the later emperors ever reached the age of 70 so he was the only one to ever use it. This has given me an idea for a 'Twenty-Eight Year Old Door' to stop Mike from stealing my stuff.
