After getting home last night Vincent had poured over maps of the tube system. Me being shattered, I simply fell asleep, typical. When we got up this morning Vincent said that he was able to get us to the temple of heaven and to the summer palace by tube, so no messing around with taxi drivers who were hard to come by then took you a long way round. We set off after breakfast, another disaster – no veggie stuff at all expect a boiled egg and they still wanted to charge us! We made it to the tube stop and I actually used my sense of direction to tell Vincent where it was, and I was right! The tube was apparently disabled friendly, they had a line of tiles with raised bumps along the floor so a blind person could find their way and even lifts. Of course the lifts were just for show and were switched off! Other than the stairs, which although they take a while I am getting good at them, the tube was much like Shanghai’s. Clean neat and very cheap. We paid 2 yuen each for our tickets (20p) and went down to the platform where they have digital displays telling you when the next train is coming and the same glass walls covering the tracks so you can only get to the correct part of the train at the correct time. We got on and made our one change without any problems then left at the correct stop for the Temple of Heaven. A nice girl showed us the way to go and we crossed over a road bridge (you can’t cross the road in Beijing they have erected a 5 foot high white metal fence down the middle of each road to stop idiots from crossing in the wrong places) and sure enough we were right next to the entrance, in fact if we had come out of the other entrance to the tube we would have been on the door step!
We paid our entry fee and wandered in taking off scarves and gloves as we went, it was actually another lovely day and nearly warm enough for only 3 jumpers!
The park around the temple was filled with Chinese people doing mad things. Some had feathers stuck in a weight like I saw at school and were doing group ‘keepy uppies’ and lots were crowded in groups round boom boxes playing dance music Chinese style, and doing what looked like line dancing, there were grannies doing karaoke (so painful on the ears the traditional Chinese songs) and a few young guys doing dances and mines. I was hoping for another one of the adult play parks we saw at the water village but didn’t see one.
The temple itself was very well preserved and had stunning views of the city. We walked right up to it and took lots of photos; it is on most of the things that advertise Beijing probably because it is so picturesque. Inside the temple was about the same as the ones in the Forbidden City and like the Forbidden City there were lots of Chinese tourists there pushing and shoving so we didn’t spend too long looking inside – you can only look into these buildings through the doorway which is fenced off and inside is very dark compared to outside so it is hard to see and photograph.
Wandering back through the park we each ate a Chinese wagon wheel, which are like English ones but with no jam. We had bought a multi pack at the Forbidden City yesterday. We looked for some lunch as it was getting on for midday and he Chinese lunch ends at about 1.00, but we couldn’t find anything but some slightly dodgy cassava chips. We opted for another tube journey to the Summer Palace instead hoping to find something when we got there.
Vincent’s navigation was spot on as usual but when we saw where the summer palace was we realised it was impossible to walk to as the road was almost a motorway and there was no path. We tried to hail a cab but they were all full and as I was getting a bit tired we decided to try the bus. It would have been pretty hard except there was a Chinese couple there who spoke a bit of English and were going to the same place. We watched when they got off and made it to the entrance pretty easily.
The summer palace was easily the most beautiful place in China as far as I was concerned. The palace was at the far end of a huge inland lake and the day was rather misty, which made it look great but not photograph too well. At the end where we had come in was a huge bridge that went over to a peninsula so we climbed up it for more pictures. After that there was a broad pathway round the water’s edge towards the palace. We did the walk pretty slowly as I was getting very tired but I managed to get all the way round to the next entrance. We stopped several times to take photos and Vincent even went out on a jetty to get some of the pictures.
By the time we had reached the ¾ way round point I was ready to drop. The entrance fee to the palace was a bit much and as I didn’t think I could make it to the bottom of the hill, let alone up it, we decided to try and get back to the tube.
After a bit of help from some locals we found the right bus and got on. Vincent paid one of the two conductors, it was a bendy bus with a conductor for each half, and we were off to a stop that wasn’t the same one we got on at but the conductor kindly yelled something in Chinese at us when it was time.
The tube back was very hard work and I was so tired when I arrived that I decided to forgo dinner and just get straight into bed while Vincent booked our great wall tour for the next day.