Minor sightseeing

It was drizzly and cool today.  We had woken up early to get into the swing of an early start for tomorrow morning.  And besides we wanted to squeeze in some minor sights after doing only a half-day yesterday.

First up was the Lama Temple. This began as an imperial palace in the late 1600s.  It later became a monastery for Tibetan monks.  As a result, the building and artwork is a mix of Han Chinese and Tibetan styles.  They layout comprised of different temples one after another, each with Buddhas in them.  The last temple hall, The Pavilion of Ten Thousand Happiness,  was several storeys tall.

With the wet weather we didn’t linger long.  But long enough to notice that the faithful here weren’t walking around in a clockwise fashion.  Perhaps, that’s not a requirement or a tradition here amongst the Han Buddhists?  Only in Tibet?

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We continued by taxi to the Drum & Bell Tower.  It was a steep stairs to the Drum Tower just in time for the half-hourly drumming.  Traditionally, it was a way of keeping time.  Along with that was information on the Chinese measurement of seasons, solstices etc.

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We metro’ed back to the hotel.  There was a message saying that our train tickets for tomorrow would be delivered to the hotel and that we didn’t need to stay in to received them personally.  I had been concerned about missing the delivery while sightseeing.

We taxied to Wangfujing and explored the huge mall that was home to Audi, VW, Rolls Royce and Lamborghini.  Re-visiting the Gourmet Street foodcourt, it was far too busy for us.  We settled on some fast food including McDonald’s.  It was far busier than our first visit on Sunday.

From there, Kim wanted to go to the Military Museum.  It was housed in an impressively huge marble building.  The museum was filled with planes, rockets, tanks, RPG, guns plus a history of the various conflicts including that with Japan.

Last stop for the day was Qianmen where we had shopped for a suitcase last time.  We like it here as it is what I thought was the real Beijing.  Back street hawkers selling watches as cheap as NZD2.50.  There were beggars and sadly, a child lying on the pavement with his feet rotting away.

It was hard to believe that a watch costs a fraction of a Starbucks coffee in Beijing. The price here is severely over-priced and is more expensive than in Japan. A lot of snob value attached to certain things here. Some things are very out-of-whack in China!

Back at the hotel after a metro ride, we found our train tickets waiting for us.  The prices indicated on the ticket were cheaper than what we had paid through the travel agent in New Zealand, who in turn had to deal with wholesalers and other intermediaries.  We didn’t really have a choice if we wanted to keep things moving with certainty.  [Edit: Travel before it was revolutionised by the internet.]

Again, we ate in at the hotel.  We felt obliged to get a few bakery items to bring on to our train adventure tomorrow morning.  It was another early night as we had to pack up.