The Temple of Heaven

Well today is Sunday and I've decided I need to take my foot of the accelerator a little.
Being Sunday what better day to check out the Temple of Heaven - a large park in Beijing that has a couple of temples in it that the emperors used to go and prey and make sacrifices to Heaven at. I walked down to where I thought it was and found it after a little while.
The Temple of Heaven is really impressive - it is a circular, 3 storey, wooden building and the grounds and buildings were really nice to check out and walk around in. (I'm not going to post pictures here because the Ming Architecture looks a bit the same after a while - you really need to come and see the size of these places to really appreciate it properly)
One of the highlights of being there was seeing all the local Chinese people - I'm guessing because it's Sunday there were lots out and about in the parkland. Large groups would gather together and do exercise & chanting together, do some dancing, play something like hackysac - or have a group singalong - the group singing was fantastic and the enthusiasm people sang with made me nearly burst into tears!
I was feeling pretty good so I thought I would wander around some areas of Beijing that I haven't been before - it was a beautiful day and eventually I that decided I better eat. Time to try the ordering food thing again - I cheated a bit and picked a restaurant that had a menu with pictures. After ordering, I worked out that pictures don't really help anyway, because although I got the greens right, the dish that I though was a picture of beef with chili on it came out and it wasn't beef.. There were lots of small bones and not too much chili in it too (something to do with the chef coming out and looking at me when he was cooking?) It tasted OK so I got through most of it - when I made it back to the hostel I found out that I had eaten 'Spicy Duck' - not really spicy but I was pleased to find out it wasn't a completely unexpected animal!
I found my way to the remaining section of the Beijing city wall which was interesting to check out. Walls are definitely a big part of my interpretation of China - all the different city walls, the Hutongs are surrounded by walls and of course there's the Great Wall.
So much for taking my foot of the accelerator though - I covered what felt like a huge area on foot again today - when you look on a map though the area is really quite small!
My feet are not happy and I now have split and bruised heels.. Silly. (I wonder if that has anything to do with wearing shoes!) I decided that a few beers were required so I had some with Wayne and Ali from Newcastle/Sunderland. They just got married and are travelling for six months or so - before that Wayne has been in Iraq since 2003 and his book on his experience is coming out soon..