A Little Piece of Heaven

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September 22nd 2008

Published: January 24th 2009

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wanderlustwest

Subway

Such a nice subway system

Shane and I had planned on making today our Great Wall trip out to Mutiyanu, but the forecast was less than promising. Instead, we opted to book a taxi to the Great Wall on Tuesday and spend the day at the Temple of Heaven and the Back Lakes, or Hou Hai.

It ended up being a really hot day instead- too hot for walking on the Wall, so we were pleased with our decision to spend it in Beijing instead. Navigating the subway out to the Temple of Heaven was easy. Such nice and modern subways and platforms compared to what we are used to in Toronto. We walked around the outskirts of teh Temple, past the busy traffic and beautiful red flowers still in full bloom.

The Temple of Heaven is actually a series of parks and buildings. The Temple of Heaven park was full of locals practising everything from fan daincing, to tai chi and badminton. One couple asked if we'd like to play after noticing us watching them. We politely passed and moved on to the Hall for Good Harvests. Lots of people and tour groups milling about. The site was still full of puddles from

Temple of Heaven

The walls of the Temple of Heaven

the overnight rain.

In the distance we could make out a ferris wheel at one of the Beijing amusement parks through the fog. By midday it was pretty hot and muggy given the dampness from the rain. Shane had one curious woman study him as he tried to take pictures of the altar.

We decided to make our next stop in the Hou Hai, or Back Lakes, all the way back across the city. The area itself is supposed to be very picturesque. We made one wrong turn out of the subway and ended up taking the long way there through residential and commercial side streets, which although were interesting, it was just too hot to wander about in the blistering sun. We finally made it to the lakes which were thankfully shaded by trees along the shoreline.

Our guidebooks told us that this was the happening place to be, filled with bars, and restaurants...but what it failed to mention is that off-hours and post-Olympics, nothing is open so it was a little harder to find a place to have lunch than we had anticipated. We ended up eating at a Vietnamese place called Nuage (also a

Bike ride

club by night) with a great view of the lake, but were a little diappointed that none of the bars were open to sit on the patio and enjoy a drink of our new favourite beer, Yanjing, by the lake.

We had planned to go up the Drum Tower, but both it and the Bell Tower were closed. Instead, we walked around the outside of the structures and back to our hotel. Spent the evening back on Wangfujing for dinner before heading back to the hotel nice and early to rest up before our trip to the Great Wall.

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