Temples and Parks

Right-e-o we're afraid we've got a few days to catch up on again, so it's going to take a while - we hope you have a cuppa to keep you going through this one!

SATURDAY 7th April

Today we weren't up hugely early (we managed to forget to set an alarm), but we were soon out of the hostel and heading off to the Summer Palace. In our usual sense of adventure, we decided to use the public transport system, so we caught the trusty old (packed to the rafters) subway train and then had to try and find the bus stop - which was luckily very easy to find, as it was about 100 yards down the street from the subway station. We only had to wait a few minutes for the bus to arrive and we were pointing away at our guide book again to show where we wanted to go. The journey was quite long, as the traffic was pretty solid, but the attendant got our attention when it was time for us to leave the bus and also pointed us in the direction of the Summer Palace, which was just across the street. The Palace was really lovely, with lots of open space to enjoy, including a vast lake. There was a gorgeous view of the Palace grounds from the top of the hill at the north side of the grounds (unfortunately there were a tonne of stairs to climb to get there - not a surprise and we're not sure how much more of it our legs can take)! The buildings were in the ususal Imperial style with deep red pillars, blue, yellow and green rooves and the most beautiful painings on the rafters and ceilings. We were piggies (and tight wotsits) when it came to lunch and just each had a rather large ice-cream! Unfortunately some of the buildings were again closed off due to rennovation, but luckily not too many. We didn't have it in us to walk around the entire perimeter of the lake and grounds, so once we were out of energy we headed off to find the bus to take us to the hostel again. Once back, we headed out for dinner in the restaraunt we ate in on the first night, but managed to order less food and so didn't waste as much this time!

SUNDAY 8th April

Today we headed off to the Temple of Heaven Park, using the subway to get us to Chongwenmenwai and then walking for about 30 minutes to get to the Park itself. It was really beautiful there, the grounds were expansive, but very dry and arid as though it was the middle of a very hot summer rather than the beginning of spring. It was also very busy (just as yesterday had been) as it was the weekend. But we enjoyed walking around the grounds and even managed to get a nice tourist to take a photograph of us together with the Temple of Heaven in the background. It was a shame though because as usual we were unable to enter most of the buildings and so it is difficult to get a true perspective and awe of some of the most beautiful and impressive ones we have peered into over the past few days. Again some of the buildings in the Park had been closed off and so we ended up finishing quite quickly and so decided to go and buy some lunch. We went to a place called RBT (Real Brewed Tea) on Chongwenmenwai, the food was OK, but not exceptional (especially for the price of it), but the drinks were quite impressive - Steve had a milkshake type thing which was huge!

Once we'd finished lunch we walked along the Ming City Wall ruins Park, getting soggy from all the water jets spraying the grass and plants! At the end of the wall was the Southeast Corner Watchtower, which we went up and had a look around in. Most of it was taken up with a modern art display and the rest was focused around outlining the history of the Ming City Walls and Watchtowers etc. We were both really tired and ended up being back at the hostel really early today - mainly because I've been feeling quite ill over the past few days (I've got a grotty cold which is making me feel very groggy most of the time) and Steve's poor feet are suffering and are now covered in blisters! So we enjoyed sitting around for a little while before deciding to head out to find some food to take back to the hostel for dinner. We were going to go to a little place next to the restaraunt we ate at on Saturday, but there were no English signs and we couldn't tell what anything was, and there were no noodles or rice or anything! So we were complete and utter chavs and got a MacDonalds (yes we are ashamed about doing it, but we were just so tired)!

MONDAY 9th April

We've not really done anything today, as we didn't want to get stuck out in Beijing sightseeing and then not have enough time to pack our bags and check out of the room in time for catching the sleeper train to Xi'an. So we had our first proper lay-in before Steve popped out to buy us some breakfast. We're not sure what it was, but it was just about OK! Late morning we decided to pop out for some fresh air and went to the shopping area of Wenfungji (something like that anyway). We wandered aroud looking at the shops etc - Steve was very tempted by all the camera goodies on display! We found a nice looking restaraunt to eat in, where I managed to chuck sweet and sour pork down myself and all over the table as it slipped out of my chopsticks! After lunch we sauntered back to the subway so that we could get back to the hostel and pack our bags ready to go to the train station.

That's about it really, we're just sitting around with our bags packed, ready to jump in a taxi to get to the train station! We're both feeling a bit homesick at the moment (although I would probably say I'm making up for the both of us)! Missing you all loads and hope you're enjoying the blog!