Heaven is just a temple away

We started our day off by heading out with the guy Nick got talking to last night to a dumpling shop for breakfast where we had our first experience of Chinese dumplings. We weren't bowled over by the food but it was a nice filling breakfast and great to spend time with a lovely guy who just so happens to be from Nottingham. It was our last full day in Beijing so we decided to make the most of our new found love of the metro service and head to a a temple in the south called the Temple of Heaven. It was where the Emperors use to come to worship the Gods and the link to heaven often on offerings. The grand circular temples were elaborately decorated and although different were very much in keeping with all the other places we have seen with buildings built in the same eras. After we explored the grounds we decided to try and head to Tiananmen Square but the volume of people and the length of the queues put us off completely. We decided to abandon that idea and head to a park that was recommend to us for its cherry blossoms and we were not disappointed. Surrounding a beautiful lake is the most stunning park with so many varieties of trees as well as plenty of flowering cherry blossom trees. The backdrop to the park was the Beijing skyline so we just sat by the waters edge soaking up the beautiful view. They also had little stalls running selling all manners of things but the biggest hit was these loaves of bread. Every other person we saw had a bag full of bread so we felt we had to get some. We headed to the most crowded stall there by far and saw bread being sold by the second. That stall must be making a killing! The bread itself was about £1.15 for three loaves and it was a sweetened bread similar to brioche. We also found a candyfloss stall where a guy was making very impressive flower candyfloss sticks so we had to have one of course. He was also making rubber duck shapes. Rubber ducks are just everywhere here! After staying in the park for quite a while we did try and attempt to find a subway station. An hour and a half and a McDonald's later we found the subway! We even resulted to showing locals the map which did end with a woman holding my hand and leading me down the street until we found someone who spoke English. It's lovely that even with such a language barrier everyone is still willing to stop and help. It's sad though ending your day with coming back to the hostel and packing up your backpack ready to set off tomorrow. Being in separate rooms has meant we have met some lovely people here by being in the communal area so much that it will be hard saying goodbye to this place as well as this fascinating city.Read more