So on Friday we met the group early in the morning and went to the Temple of Heaven with our guide. By now, some more people had turned up - two girls who had already been travelling through Asia and Oz and two guys from Kent who had been delayed at Heathrow.

The temple cost about 4 pounds to get in so was pleasingly cheap! By this point we were a bit templed out, but we perservered. The Temple of Heaven is one of the most famous places in China, other than the Forbidden City, and is actually set in the middle of a massive park. To get to the temple you have to walk through the park, and to be really honest, we preferred that to the temple itself!! (we are soooo ignorant!) As we walked through the park, there were loads of elderly Chinese people dancing, playing and generally working out! Such a funny sight to see, especially as this never happens in England!! We've uploaded some photos, please, please, please look at them it's so funny! The first set of people were line dancing to loud Chinese music with absolutely no expression on their faces. There were some people ballroom dancing as well which looked pretty random in the middle of it all. There were also groups of people playing with this sort of badminton shuttlecock sort of thing with brightly coloured feathers and they kick it to each other to keep it up in the air. That was the end of Matt and the other guys - they all started playing with them as it's a bit like keeping a football up in the air and it was hillarious seeing how slow they all were compared to the quick Chinese people! As we continued to walk through the park, we encountered an outside 'gym' which made us laugh so much we were crying - it is literally an outside version of Fitness First but with more basic equipment and old people just casually using it! But with no expression on their faces! Matt had a go on the monkey bars and wanted to stay for a full work out but our guide hurried us along to get to the main attraction. We could have stayed there all day!

As we walked towards the temple there were more 'sights' to see - old men playing cards, people singing, a band playing and a group of people with tennis bats and balls doing this sort of thai chi thing in unison moving the ball around the bat... so hard to describe but amazing to watch. We captured this on the camcorder (thank you Decca G!) to show you what we mean when we get back.

When we finally go to the temple (our poor guide must have been so frustrated with us ambling along pointing and staring at all the people!) it was still pretty breathtaking. The temple was originally used by the emperor (suprise, surprise) to pray for good harvests. The temple halls are round and the bases square which symbolise heaven and earth. Everything is just designed so perfectly and fits in together like a mirror image... we are so impressed with how much time has been taken on every little detail. At the end of the tour we got to the Round Altar which is made of white marble and revolved around the number nine which is an imprerial number in China which only the Emperor was allowed to use. The Round Altar symbalises heaven and is compiled of multiples of nine stones which makes it possibly the luckiest place in the world - and we stood on it! So that was pretty impression - we have been to heaven!

After we finished at the temple we went across the road to the 'Pearl Market' which is just a cheap, knock off shopping centre where they try to sell you everything under the sun. We weren't here to shop so we left and went to find some food. We are ashamed to say that we ended up in KFC - Beijing food is extremely greasy and the smell can really make you feel quite sick so we couldn't face eating locally again. Apparently the food will get better as we go south so we are holding out hope for Shanghai!

For the rest of the afternoon, we went off on our own and visited Jingshan Park which is at the end of the Forbidden City and only cost us 20p to get in - bargain! This place was absolutely breathtaking - it is a series of buildings built up an extremely steep hill to protect the Forbidden City from evil spirits. We clambered up to the top of the hill and were rewarded with the most panoramic view over Beijing (see photos!). This park is one of the oldest sites in all of China and was really worth the visit. Even though there is loads of smog here, it's always sunny so you can actually see quite a lot. The park is really green and full of plants and gorgeous pine trees and you can hear bids singing all the time - we really felt like we had left the city, if only for a little while.

Excited from our adventure in the park, we then went to another park that our guide had recommended which is called Beihai Park. We think we got it wrong when looking for the entrance and went the long way round (which meant over an hour of walking to find it) but we were quite happy we did as it meant that we got to see more of the city and had a chance to really stretch our legs. When we finally got to this park, we were again, blown away! This site originally held a palace before the Forbidden City was created and is mainly made up of a huge lake which was frozen when we were there. There is an island in the middle of the lake which holds a temple and was apparently built back in 1741 for a visit from the Dalai Lama. The park is made up of many temples and halls which hold all sorts of interesting art and information about Chinese history. But the thing that we really wanted to see was the Nine Dragon Screen which is a 5 metre high, 27 metre long (we got that info from the guidebook, we aren't complete geeks!) spirit wall which is made of jade coloured glazed tiles and has over 600 dragons carved on to it. There's some photos of it in the photo album.

After doing that we decided to walk all the way back to the hotel (Matt's Mum would be proud!) which took a while but we prefer to do that sometimes as it means that we see so much more and experience the city properly. It would be so easy to get a taxi but you just don't get the same feeling. And it's expensive. We knew that we needed an early night as we were leaving for our Great Wall trip the following day so we stocked up on some food and got an early night!