Tuesday Sept 16

Weather

• Another day of about 27 degrees but very, very humid and the sky is the worst we have seen. In fact, so far it has been quite good. Huge thunderstorm at 6:30 with plenty of lightening.

Temple of Heaven

• Again the size of the place is amazing. The buildings are all old and most have burned down more than once. The Chinese seemed to have a thing for making numerous buildings along a straight line that can go for a long ways! It is very evident that these sites, like the Forbidden City, are important in Chinese history. Although this was the first time we saw a wider range of other nationalities our and about.

• A couple of Chinese girls were eager to have their picture taken with us. They were from northern China, where I guess foreigners are still a bit of a novelty

• They have a lot of green space around the Temple of Heaven but, alas, no one is allowed on the grass except for a few exceptions. I suppose it would all get trampled. It also explains why some 2 – 3 year olds we saw the other day at the Olympic Green seem quite fascinated with the grass.

• There were many people doing various activities in the park. Some were in a group singing. Right next to them some were playing music with interesting instruments. Some were dancing. Some were playing with a hacky sack like object (we bought one). This park seems to get used quite a lot by the locals.

798 Art District

• We took a taxi from the hotel to the 798 district, about a 25 minute drive 32Yuan, can’t beat the price. We stopped in at the info center and bought a map. The map turned out to be sort of useless as so many new galleries have recently opened. Like everything else in Beijing growing very quickly. The young lady at the info center recommended we start at the Ullens Art Centre, boy was she right! To enter the main gallery you went up some steps then into a big tube, the end was a slide into the gallery space. The whole thing was a big mixed media artwork! The main gallery contained about 30 pieces of contemporary art.

Walk around Wangfujing Street

• Went to the Foreign Language Bookstore and Gerry twisted or popped something in his ankle! Ouch.