Through the snow, the lonely, lonely, snow, we are heading towards the main temple. At the Hall of Prayer of Good Harvests, I pray faithfully and sincerely to the gods for a good harvest and good year coming. In the old Temple of Heaven, built in the Ming Dynasty in 1440. After prayer, I feel peace sink into me. It is going to be a very prosperous year in Beijing.

We saw the Beijing Opera today, and it was quite good. The downside was the subtitles got jixed up and one of the performers slipped pretty bad. Otherwise, it was funny and entertaining.

There were two shortened plays shown. The first was the Monkey King trying to get his sister in law, Princess Iron Fan's fan to blow out the fire (flame) on the mountain, blocking him, his master, Tang Sun and two other disciples and bodyguards. The second was a war scene between two arrogant warriors (generals) and their armies, one in white, armed with hammers and other with swords.

Earlier we went to a Beijing Opera workshop. We learned quite a lot of information; some was a little review for Cristabel and me, since it was our project. There the artistic director, Ghaffar Pouraza, gave us a short tour of the theater, told how Beijing Opera evolved, and significance in the paint colors on the performer's faces. He also painted one of our group member's face like a monkey.

Ghaffar also performed as the Monkey King. It was real good on such a small stage. He showed the monkey getting new clothes, and the magical peaches of immortality. Also, how the Monkey King crashed the King of Heaven's birthday party and stole the food.

About the colors; black means good, white means bad, and red means honesty, smart and yellow mainly means royalty. Usually, judges are all red and black. Time to say good bye for now and sleep. We need to be fresh for another packed day!