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Published: August 12th 2011
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We were up and out by 7.30 this morning along with CJ and Emily to explore Beijing some more. We headed straight to Jingshan Park where we got to experience rush hour on the subway which was completely manic and by the time we arrived at Jingshan we were covered in sweat from the trains, unfortunately it was other peoples sweat as we were packed in next to some very smelly guys on the train. Jingshan Park at that time of the morning was wonderful, it is set up high on a hill overlooking the Forbidden City and the views were fabulous. It was already starting to get hot and it was still very early in the morning so we knew it would be a warm day. We stayed in the Park for about an hour before deciding to move on to the next place.
It took us about 30 minutes to walk to the subway station we needed and we hopped back on the packed and sweaty trains to arrive at the Temple of Heaven, a sight that had been recommended to us whilst in Beijing. The temple was not very impressive, infact it was very small but the surroundings it was set in were nice and there were some lovely shaded parts where we chilled out on the grass for a while playing cards as it really had got very hot by this point. We were all hot and didn't really want to be exposed to the sun for much longer so we decided to head to the local indoor market, which we were sceptical about as we had heard it wasn't to good. Luckily it was short walk over to the market and on route we grabbed some street food which tasted like a wrap with noodles and meat stuffed inside which was really tasty. The market, much to our amasement, was brilliant. We were in there for 2 hours and they sold everything and anything, and the haggling was great fun with the local Chinese sellers. We all managed to pick up some real bargins and got some really nice souvenirs to bring home, and James I got a beautiful Chinese lantern for you to put up when I get back! I also managed to pick up something gorgeous for my little Godson Henry - I hope he likes it as I had to haggle hard for it!
Once we had finished at the market we decided to call it a day and we headed back to the hostel where we packed (as we leave tomorrow night) and chilled for a while before going out for dinner. We are all on a bit of a budget so dinner consisted of a selection of cheap rice, noodles and wontons from the local shop that we ate on the street (unfortunately we ate at dusk so we're all biten to buggery by the mosquitoes) that weren't all that tasty (food here seems to be hit and miss). We spent the rest of the evening chilling with the rest of the group and playing some cards.
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