Temple of Heaven

We rode our tandem to the Temple of Heaven, Tiantan Park. This is south of the center, and so the ride took us past the Forbidden City again. We chose a better route to get there this time, on the quiet streets (at least in the morning!) past Lakes Houhai and Qianhai, and then through narrow Hutongs down to the palace area. After that there were nice wide boulevards that took us to the park.


At the Entrance Gate
We planned mainly to walk around the gardens, and so only bought the entrance ticket (15 yuan) not the full ticket (35yuan) that has various sites added. We'll look at the sites some other day. We arrived at past 11am, but the park still thronged with the storied early morning game players, exercisers, musicians, etc. The Long Corridor was lined with groups of people playing various card and board games, and musicians. Just outside, people were playing an exercise game somwhat like badminton, except the idea seems to be to cooperate, to catch the balls on the soft rackets in an elegant way. There were a few kite flyers, although there was not much wind. A variety of martial arts dancers were perfroming their routines, with bright costumes and swords. The motivation appears to be personal, rather than to attract an audience, but the performers seem not at all bashful


Long Corridor


Ball Game Exercise


Folk Musicians


Martial Arts Performance
The central feature of the park is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest. This was closed for rennovation until May, according to a sign, so that will have to wait for another time too. As you can see, it was another smoggy day.


Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest
Nearby is the Imperial Vault of Heaven with bright blue tile roofs.


Blue Roof
A spectacular flowering Magnolia was just before the exit, probably the best we've seen so far.



Magnolia Tree
On the way home we followed a similar route, but with some details suggested by the Lonely Planet Beijing bicycle ride. The guide suggests that you can actually cycle right along the moat of the Forbidden City, north of the Tiananmen Gate, the Workers' Cultural Palace, and Zhongshan Park. This seemed unlikely, since it takes you through the main entrance courtyard full of the crowds waiting to get in to the Forbidden City, but did indeed turn out to be true. On the moat, right opposite the Forbidden City, is this gray and dusty Hutong area.


Hutong near the Forbidden City
The route back to the campus from there was through various Hutongs back to the lake area. Now it was afternoon, and so we joined the jams of Pedi-Cabs showing the tour groups the area.

The route of our ride is here. (There are some gaps in the track for the outward trip.)