The Imperial Academy, Beijing

The Taixue Gate, a fantastic glazed archway, built to show the value of Education in Beijing.

Situated on the same site and next to the Confucius Temple is the Imperial Academy which was built originally in 1271 and served as the 'supreme administrative headquarters for the organisation of education and the highest seat of learning' until 1911.

An amazing water dragon :)

The main building on this site is the  Biyong Hall which is surrounded by a circular  moat. Note the gold plated object on the top of this building, this can be seen clearly from my daughters' flat.

The two characters on this tablet are Bi Yong, naming the building.

Looking into the Biyong Hall, showing some of the Imperial furniture it houses including the Imperial throne used by Emperors who visited the site to give lectures.

The beautiful ceiling :)

Another statue of Confucius standing in front of the buildings which were used as class rooms.

The gorgeous circular moat, complete with goldfish. The classroom buildings can be seen in the background.

Finally a photo of my daughter Alice and myself, taken by a lovely gentleman who was enjoying the Temple and Academy at the same time as we were :)

Beijing, The Confucius Temple.

My daughter asked me if I would like one last holiday in China, as she is coming home later this year. It didn't take me very long to say 'Yes please!' So, at the end of March I flew out to Beijing, probably for the last time, to enjoy Beijing once more and to visit some of the sights in and around Beijing that I had missed on previous visits.

One of the statues of Confucius :)

The first days outing was to the Confucius Temple which is literally 5 minutes walk from my daughters flat, but she had never been there before. 

We arrived early in the morning, before the hordes got there, which was lovely. The atmosphere was just so peaceful. 

A Temple Bell.

There are 14 temples holding Bixi (a Dragon with the shell of a Turtle) which support Steles, which are very large inscribed stones. 

Wonderful statues :)

Gorgeous building decorations :)

Roofs, lots of lovely roofs...

Nine animals on the corner of this building denoting how important the building is, the most on any building is 10, and these are only found in the Forbidden City.

Inside the main Da Cheng Hall, it was an amazing sight, probably the most decorated building that I have seen in China. 

 These decorations are all painstakingly done by hand, how about that for a job?

Wonderful :)

Another statue of Confucius towards the rear of the site, which led through to..

...a performance area with a  stage, I would imagine that it is lovely to enjoy a show here :)

Bells on the stage.

You can just see the heads of  Bixis in two of the temples :)

We found this Hall by accident, it is full of stelae, the writing on most of them is very faint, but it is impressive to see so many all together.

We thoroughly enjoyed our morning walking round, on our way out we saw another gateway and went to investigate, you will see what we found in the next blog :)