Spring Festival Day aka Chinese new year day aka Chun Jie day

the aftermath. just some of it. i'm sure there are crazy picture opportunities in the hutongs early the next morning if the wind doesn't pick up.

went to baiyunguan (white cloud temple) because it is less crazy and popular than the temple fair they have at ditan park. we went to both. at least at baiyunguan people actually pray and stuff. ditan is just a huge fair with games and booths to buy stuff.

it is a daoist/taoist (same thing) temple. I think i remember playing a game that was set in japan and it was a karate game and there were various elements of taoism in it because it talked about karma and darma and i remember trying to remember what was what. well that didnt happen. i dont know even after i looked it up on wikipedia for 30 seconds. anyway that game was on the Apple IIe, you know the old one from the 80's/90's with the green dot matrix screen? You remember that game dad. what was it called

i can't remember if it is good luck to hit this bell or make the copper coin go through the hole. anyway there were throngs of people that bought the metal discs and were chucking them in there. there was a poor guy on both sides of the bridge shoveling up the coins....while people were throwing them still! they just had to put their jackets over their heads and dive in there.

poor guy, and on chinese new year too.

i dont know what was going on here but some people were just buying a bundle of insence from a guy and walking over to a working and giving him the bundle which was just tossed in the fire pit and then they would just leave, like its that simple and sanitary, buy the insence, give to guy, he throws in bin, your karma is instantly cleansed, you dont even have to pray or burn the insence yourself. I don't know how it works but it would seem like you need to put a little more effort into praying and stuff.


people lining up to pray


they were leaving incense everywhere and praying at anything including this burner that is out of commision and covered up!

gorilla in the insence


fortune telling.


ditan park, the most popular and most biggiest temple fair in beijing.

there were so many people that it was not fun. you have to shuffle to not get knocked down when you're walking. its elbow to elbow and lots of waiting to do anything.

I came back with my roomates 2 days later though and it was still super crowded. that's in the next post!