19 July - Zoo, Temple of Heaven & Market

On the first day when we found out we were not going to see pandas on this visit, we were a little bit disappointed.  But the Chinese teachers who heard we wanted to see pandas kindly re-arranged the schedules so we could see them!  At first we thought we had arrived at sea world because there was a big aquarium at the front, but it turned out to be a zoo - yay!  One of the first animals we saw was this elephant:

Then we went through an indoor protected area, the panda's special exhibition space.  No pandas, they must be sleeping inside.

Then we went outside, and we saw something very exciting - a sleeping panda!

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It became even better when we saw a panda that was awake, walking around and eating bamboo:

After having seen the pandas, we were very happy.  We walked around the zoo some more and then were on our way to lunch at Yoshinoya before going to the Temple of Heaven.

The Temple of Heaven (constructed in 1406-1420) was where the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties held ceremonies to pray for good harvests, and what not four times per year.  We did not see much of the temple, but by Wikipedia's accounts, much of the temple had been destroyed by neglect and historical events:

In 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion, the Eight Nation Alliance occupied the temple complex and turned it into the force's temporary command in Beijing, which lasted for one year. The occupation desecrated the temple and resulted in serious damage to the building complex and the garden. Robberies of temple artifacts by the Alliance were also reported. With the downfall of the Qing, the temple complex was left unmanaged. The neglect of the temple complex led to the collapse of several halls in the following years.

At the Temple of Heaven, we found it to be surrounded by a huge park, with beautiful trees.  But it was a hot day and the gift shop was very enticing:

Before going back however, Miss Zhang made us take a group photo: