When we finally got to the temple, it was…meh. I’m sorry! I really do apologize if I’m offending anyone. If you see one temple, you’ve seen them all in China. All the interesting parts of the trip was going on outside rather than inside the temple area. Actually, there was one thing that I thought was neat. The walls of one of the compounds was built circular and if you stand at one end, you can hold a conversation with someone at the other end. I don’t know the exact science behind it, but I’m pretty sure some magic was involved. It was amazing! Me and my roommate repeated “piao liang!” like crazy, which means “beautiful!”. I think if I come back when all the trees are green and the flowers have bloomed, some of the temple grounds would look stunning.

The Temple of Heaven is also home to the world’s largest tripod.

Side Note: I think field trips should be mandatory even at the university level. The night before our “field trip” to the Temple of Heaven, I was actually excited. The same excitement I had as a kid before field trip days during elementary was still there. I almost couldn’t sleep. This told me that the as an adult, this was somewhat still relevant. I know some classes do have field trips, but it should be mandatory that ALL classes have at least one field trip. We’re paying good money at some of these universities, and I think they owe it to us. How awesome would it be if a school’s program stated that every course has a mandatory field trip? That would definitely tip the scale if someone had to decide which school to go to, and would set them apart from all other programs.

I believe that our pure desires and passions as humans are best expressed when we are children, and since elementary school teachers see the necessity of an occasional outing here and there for the development of a child, what does this say about field trips? It’s a necessity that somehow got confused with maturity, and deemed unnecessary as a part of growing up. Really? I remember our 4th grade class took a field trip to a local Pizza Hut. It was simple. We just saw the kitchen and how they made pizzas. We then ate pizza, and that was it. It was awesome, and thinking about it now, if my Cooking 101 class in college took that same trip I would still think of it as totally awesome. Yes, maybe the context may not always be right as you grow up, but the idea of the field trip is always right. Even corporations get the hint by having occasional off-sites for their meetings. So, wake up university system! You’re dropping the ball on this thing.