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Published: June 11th 2008
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Temple of Heaven map
Just in case I got lost! This morning, after a shower, I nipped out for some breakfast. Without really wanting to trust the hotel’s Chinese-Western breakfast, I decided the only place I could trust would be the McDonald’s. I know, I’m so English! But it was a nice breakfast. I must point already, that as you read through this whole trip, you won’t be reading about me trying out every fast food restaurant in China. I did have local food, but just not yet.
After this, I went out for another walk out. I went westwards this time, getting my bearings, and trying to find a few places for food. I couldn’t find the place I wanted, so headed back to the hotel, to get out of the heat for a while.
On returning to the hotel, the maid was doing the room, so I had to wait outside for a while. Whilst waiting, my “roomie” turned up. I knew his name as I’d checked with reception earlier that day, about when the Intrepid tour guide was going to post a welcome note, and I caught sight of the group list.
So my “roomie” was Dan. He was from London, and was four years
younger than me. He worked in The City. It was his first tour of this kind. We had a little chat, as we waited for the maid to finish, and then headed into the room.
He was going out to meet up with friends, so we planned to meet back at the room before heading up to the group meeting later that evening. During the afternoon, there was a 3-minute silence in honour of those that had lost their lives in the Chéngdú earthquake. I was in the hotel room at the time, overlooking the main street and it was observed perfectly.
I decided to walk to the Temple of Heaven Park, which was about a 45-minute walk south from the hotel.
It cost 35 yen (about £3) for a through ticket, which allowed me to visit all the key sights; the Temple of Heaven, Imperial Vault of Heaven, Echo Wall, Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, and the Round Altar. It was very impressive and typically symbolised what Běijīng is about. I spent a couple of hours here, before heading back to the hotel.
Back at the hotel, I had a shower and got ready
for the group meeting. Dan came back shortly me, and when it got to 6:30pm we headed down to the lobby bar, which is where we were to meet. There seemed to be a couple of people that I thought were on my tour, so I asked, and they were. They were Elli and Erlend, a couple from Norway. So I sat down and had a quick chat with them.
Marcia, our tour guide for the next 9 days, came over after a while and called us up to one of the meeting rooms in the hotel upstairs, for our group meeting. There were ten of us in the meeting. There was supposed to be twelve, but two hadn’t arrived. There were two Australian couples, one couple from Adelaide (Lisa and Vince), and one from Cairns (Georgia and Damon). There were a Norwegian couple (Elli and Erlend), and, as well as Dan and myself, two English girls, Steph and Rosanne. We all gave a little introduction on ourselves, gave our passport and insurance details, and had an intro chat from Marcia on what to expect over the next week or so. By 8pm, we were all done and a
little more familiar with each other.
Next up, was our very first group dinner together. The place we went to specialised in Peking Duck, obviously something we could not miss out on whilst in Běijīng. The food was lovely and the company great too. With a couple of beers downed also, everyone really got on well. We stayed till about 10pm I think, before we were turfed out. In England, it’s different with a meal in a restaurant. Going out for a meal, ends up being a whole-evening affair, with some talk and drink after the actual meal. However, in China, it’s pretty much eat-your-meal, and then pay-and-leave, which I found strange.
We headed back to the hotel, where some headed up to bed, but Dan and I were still fine, so we tagged along with Georgia and Damon, who’d found a nice bar a street back from the main Chongwenmen Nei St. that our hotel was on. They’d be in Běijīng for a number of days already, and were very adventurous in finding new places. Anyway, we went to the Blue Green Bar for a few drinks, and a nice chat. It was a weird place, playing
what sounded like Dutch techno music, and seemed quite a seedy place, but it was welcoming enough. We stayed here for 3 Tsing Tao’s, which was to be everyone’s favourite drink of the tour. However, we always had to ask for cold drinks, and they don’t seem to have grasped the whole warm beer is bad concept.
From here, we headed off back to the hotel, which was only a short walk away. Tomorrow, we were going to the Great Wall of China.
Temple of Heaven:
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/Běijīng/heaven/index.htm
http://www.Běijīngguide2008.com/temple_of_heaven/temple_of_heaven.html
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