Day 25 - The Temple of Heaven

Sometimes you need to be flexible if you don't book ahead and plan to buy the train ticket on the day. Since the overnight trains to Xi'an were all fully booked, I decided to just take the fast train there.
This meant a bit less time in Beijing to see the Temple of Heaven and I had to skip the Temple of Earth visit.

Still, the Temple of Heaven visit was a must for me and it was very nice to see it again with a great blue sky.
The park around the temple is also quite big and well visited by people so it's worth wandering if you have the time to see people playing various Chinese instruments, dancing, and singing.

The roof of the temple is all purple and looks great in sunshine, the round shape (to signify heaven) also makes it quite special to see.

I had to rush through a bit but managed to enjoy the temple and even a stroll around the park to get some shade and do some people watching.

There were quite a lot of visitors around so getting a great shot of the temple was not always possible, unless you also wanted to include them in your picture. While I usually like people in my pictures, I wanted to get some pictures of the temple and had to be a bit more creative with the angles and locations from where to take the pictures.

After picking up my bag at the hotel and getting to Beijing West station, i boarded the 'bullet' train for Xi'an North.

Day 23 - Beijing Parks

After the last two rather grey days, the sun was out again with slightly lower, more tolerable temperatures and a rare (for Beijing anyway) clear blue sky, not washed out, greyish blue but proper deep blue.

This was the perfect occasion to finally head to the Forbidden City, Jingshan and Beihai Parks.

It was a very nice days and the crowds were not too bad but I found that while walking through the Forbidden City, I did not have much to add to my previous pictures from 2006.
It is great to revisit certain locations as you can just wander and enjoy them without feeling like you need to document this but it's also strange to hardly take any pictures of a quite cool place.

But rather than taking the same pictures, just with a different camera (was one of my first GRD I trips in 2006), I decided to just taken pictures of things I did not get last time or where I had anything new or different to add.

This continued on through Jingshan Park, where you have the best views of Beijing and I plan to go early in the morning for hopefully a nice sunrise, and then to the Winter Palace or Beihai Park with the nice white Dagoba, where I waited to capture the sunset baking the lake and Dagoba in warm orange light.

Tomorrow, I have a visit to the Great Wall planned and then I am mostly done in Beijing and will move on Saturday evening to Xian, after going to the Temple of Heaven.

No people in today's picture selection after having too many people pictures yesterday.

Day 22 - Of the real and fake Beijing

This post would have more appropriately been called 'People in Beijing' but here the pictures and text are a bit mismatched so hope you like it anyway.

The weather was still grey an dull so I figured it might be s good a time as any to walk from my hotel to Tiananmen Square, via Wangfujing Street (the Night Market), and then on to Quianmen and see what they have done there. Last time I walked along Quianmen street it was mostly boarded up and scheduled for demolition and renovation for the Olympics.

While Tianmen Square had more security checkpoints, I was glad to see that the 'students' wanting to 'learn/practice English', show you their 'art exhibition' or just 'have coffee' were still around, albeit less and not on the square itself. They are kind of a tradition for me and I would have been disappointed not to have them around, not that I would recommend going along with them (unless you want to waste some money) but it's always a nice enough chat and you can (and should) ask them for useful information, which they mostly provide without problems.

Otherwise, I was not hugely taken by Tiananmen Square and figured I've taken all photos of it last time round so there was not much photography to be done here.

Heading on to Quianmen gate, I decided to skip going in an just head on to Quianmen Street and see something completely new for me.

Well, I don't know what I expected but was certainly not prepared for what was waiting. For  full disclosure, I only walked along Quianmen Street twice in 2006 so it was far from knowing the area but what they have done is just wrong.

It not only feels completely out of place, at first look it seems like a film set or a kitschy Disneyland street depicting China, complete with fake looking (but working) tram.
All this done by someone who has never been to China and less authentic feeling then any Chinatown you will ever encounter around the world. There is no character there, everything looks fake and the expensive boutique shops do their own to make you feel like you walked into some kind of alternate reality.

Baffled and completely confused, I wandered around for quite a while, trying to get my head straight and figure out if this was actually real. Even after being around there for an hour or longer, I could not make up my mind what to think of this. I mean it's horrible and wrong but in a way you have to experience it yourself to really understand so I guess go there while in Beijing and see for yourself.

Once I wandered into the side streets to the East it actually got worse, a lot worse with empty shops, dead end alleys, fallen down statues, dusty shop windows, faded paint and so on. There was some sort of 'Taiwan Yes!' festival going on but I did not quite understand it.

I was ready to turn around and leave this place but then figured I might as well document everything and also check out the side streets and alleys to the West. Imagine my surprise when I stepped back into real China and Bejing and saw the old neighbourhood I walked through in 2006 on the way to a restaurant.
Everything was there, the people, the smells, the noise, even the old cinema and the restaurant I went to. It was like stepping through some kind of portal back to the real world after being in this weird alternate reality.

Needless to say I was quite happy and been taking a lot of pictures around here, before stopping and ordering (way too much) food at the restaurant I have been to in 2006. The place did not change a bit and everything looked exactly the same, the only difference being more tourists there this time. The place is called De Yuan Roast Duck Restaurant but funny enough I did not actually had roast duck there so far.

After a very nice meal, I let them pack some of my leftovers to take away and then headed back to the hotel. I decided to walk off the food rather than take a taxi or the subway.