Beijing Day 4 - Temple of Heaven

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Hello world

We tried to get up early today however we slept through our alarm and got up at 9.40!!

Weather not as hot today, which turned out to be a blessing! Still warm but just want to mention again that although the pics look overcast or foggy, it is actually just smog!

I persuaded Anne to take a walk to the Temple of Heaven (was used by the Ming & Qing Dynasties to pray for good harvest) as it looked pretty close on a map, but it wasn't! It took us about 2 and a half hours to get there and on the way picked up our train ticket to Xi'an - the shop was in the middle of a supermarket which was wierd.

We got to the temple of heaven and walked about for a futher hour and a half. There were several temples surrounded by parkland and trees. It had taken us so long to get there and was getting quite late as we hadn't set out till about 1ish we didnt really appreciate it as much as we should have but it was beautiful. Got some great photos, everything here is really well maintained and so clean.

On our way there we notice alot of police and army activity (please see Chinese tank/apc in photos) but we didn't think anything of it. When we started heading back, many of the streets had been shut off due to a reahersal of the 60th anniversary of the people republic which happens on the 1st Oct. It took us about 4 hours to get back! I dont think we have ever seen so many coaches ferrying chinese dancers etc to an event (think Olympics celebrations x 100!!)

Early bed for us, watched Race to Witchmountain on the wee netbook, then hit the hay.

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