Beijing 2

This morning, I woke up ahead of my fellow dorm-mates and quietly packed my bag.

On the way to the temple of Heaven Park, I crossed the bridge that makes kids smarter in China.

(Other than e=mc^2, the other equations were unknown to me)

I also bought a healthy breakfast in 7/11 😶

The men shouting outside restaurants that serve dumplings overwhelmed me 😅

My first stop was at the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests.

(Managed to get there before the big crowd)

Further South is the Imperial Vault of Heaven.

Fun fact: temple halls are round but bases are squared following ‘tianyuan difang’ (heaven is round and earth is squared).

I read an article that this notion also (supposedly) inspired the design of a Chinese version of Amazon echo: LingLong DingDong.

A dragon carved in the ceiling symbolises the Emperor.

The wall around this temple is meant to be an echo wall, allowing whispers to be clearly heard from the other side. I am not sure if it works because everyone trying was speaking quite loudly to the wall (possibly because of how noisy it was anyways).

The path then leads to the round altar.

Every thing is in 3s as odd numbers are meant to be associated with heaven, with 9 (as the highest 1 digit odd number) being an imperial number.
In this park, locals gather to practice tai chi…

Play jianzi…

Or cards.

After taking a break, I slowly moved towards the long corridor.

After visiting the park, I took the subway to Dongzhimen

And then the bus to Minyue station.

At Minyue station, I was planning on taking another bus but someone offered to carpool me to my hotel in Gubeikou.

Despite raving reviews, my hotel is quiet, with me being the only occupant of the dormitory.

Before dinner, I went for a quick walk into little Great wall.

Gubeikou gate

A reminder of its past strategic importance

Gubeikou village

The wall at Gubeikou is not as well defined as in other more popular places, which doesn’t stop it from being a pleasant (but sweaty) walk.

On the right is a crouching tiger.

Small Great wall (I only made it to the first tower)

Gubeikou gate again.

There are not really any maps of the area so today it was more scouting then visiting.
For dinner: spicy potatoes! Ended up not being spicy at all, I suspected the cook deliberately left out the chilli – Still delicious and filling after missing out on lunch.