Day Two - The Temple of Heaven

The street life of Beijing feels much like it did in Casablanca or Antalya - decidedly foreign yet people are doing (largely) recognisable things. It has that atmosphere of people busily getting on with their lives in public on the streets, which really doesn't happen in Britain. So you'll see stall-holders on street corners with stalls that are no more than a trailer on the back of a bike; someone  cooking on a one burner gas jet in the open front of a minuscule restaurant, the clientèle sitting on plastic chairs on the pavement;  or a street-sweeper nonchalantly plying a besom at the side of the 6 lane highway.This living in public was much in evidence at the Temple of Heaven.

A temple in China, we discovered, doesn't mean exactly the same as it does here. A better translation would be 'temple complex'. The building we would consider the temple or pagoda is only a centre-piece of the site which also contains store houses, accommodation, courtyards/paved areas and gardens.

Temple of Heaven 

View from the terrace showing another temple building and the garden beyond

The garden at the Temple of Heaven is a lovely park full of Chinese people enjoying their leisure time. There's a long covered walkway where people were playing Chinese checkers and cards, and also a choral group singing as well as the usual picnickers and strollers in the green areas.It was a refreshing space in a busy city.

A man with a fan watches the card players

More players are watched by a man with a pet bird

Presumably this reflects life in a high-rise city. People have small apartments and no gardens so if they want to get together - or go outdoors - they go to the park. 

In spite of all the things that the people may do in the park there is an interesting list of the things that are forbidden. 

Sign at the entrance to the park

Apparently you're not allowed to play the trumpet, bring your gun, or sit down (strange!) and what is no. 7 telling you to refrain from?

Our meals were all taken communally at two round tables of ten with the dishes placed centrally on a Lazy-Susan. This evening's meal featured a Peking duck. It was very nice dish: a crispy roast duck with pancakes, hoisin sauce and cucumber strips. What was interesting was that our local guide believed this dish to be a peculiar local speciality and, although she'd been three times to England, carefully explained how to wrap the duck etc in the pancakes. It wasn't quite the same as your local Chinese restaurant though, there was a weird twist towards the end of the dinner when the last dish brought out consisted of  the stir-fried duck carcass! It was actually crisp and tasty, but it was still picking over the carcass, not something you'd expect to do in a restaurant.