Beijing - Day 3
Last night on our way back from the Great Wall we spotted a cafe with a rooftop and a view of drum tower. That's our morning coffee destination. The streets are refreshingly empty. We get a jianbing to share on the way.
The flat whites are brilliant. The morning is fresh, but the sun is warm. The jianbing is tasty. The view is great. A good start to the day.
Onto the Metro and down to the Temple of Heaven park - a massive park with various temples and other buildings where emperors performed rituals and sacrifices. Now it serves the public as an escape from the concrete jungle.
Tickets are a couple of bucks to enter, but none of the buildings are open Mondays, so we just wander around the park. Again it's mostly filled with retirees staying active, or looking after their grandkids and then a smattering of tourists like us.
We've been so impressed with how many older Chinese people are staying active and connected by doing things like dancing, tennis, hacky-sack with a big shuttlecock thing, sword practice. We need more of this in Australia, for sure.
The pick of the activities was the boxing practice with a ball on a string attached to your forehead. Hand-eye coordination, a bit of cardio and some laughs with friends - that'll keep the doctor away.
We watch as the group are punching away and before you know it they've strapped a kit on Jeff's head and are giving him pointers. Harder than it looks!
We head past the fasting temple and say hi to the cats at the bottom of the moat (without water). Don't worry, they are getting fed and we're 65% sure they can probably get out.
We stroll through the woods and spot some squirrels. We take note of the age of the trees with their plaque; some of them are 620 years old, the same age as the Forbidden City.
We exit the park and jump back on the metro. It's a bright blue sky day so we are heading for the Central TV and Radio Tower; the highest building with and observation deck.
On our way we take a little detour to a local restaurant. Order two bowls of noodles via pointing and sit with the locals. Mostly blue collar workers ducking in for a quick slurp.
The tower is only 400 metres tall and the observation deck at 235. Child's play compared to Shanghai Tower. But it's open air, so it still takes a minute to get our sweaty palms under control.
The bright blue sky isn't as clear as we thought. Hazy views for us. We can barely see the mountain ranges to the North. Or the massive building across town. It's definitely a massive city, maybe not the prettiest we've ever seen.
We Didi to a big flea market. A hairy ride. Horrible driving. Takes about 30 minutes - we keep thinking things are closer than they are - but it doesn't matter because even a 30 minute trip only costs a few bucks.
Another side-note on the Didis: while the Chinese app leaves a bit to be desired in terms of user experience, the app is connected into the traffic network data - meaning you can see the second by second count downs on the traffic lights. These are shown on the physical traffic lights as well. A great idea, allowing you to know much longer the green light has. It also let's the driver know how long he has to watch some reels before it's going to go green again...
A quick Starbucks coffee and into the lanes of trinkets we go. Before long we've snapped up some random coins, a zippo lighter, a dragon ring and an awesome fidget spinner. All of them over-paid for due to our poor haggling skills.
The market is far bigger than we originally realised (a theme emerging here...). Whole sections dedicated to wooden beads, metal objects, different stones, pairs of treated walnuts (for twirling in your hand like meditation balls). The latter is a serious business - you need to test them all to the find the right pair for you.
Jeff asks if anyone is selling Pokemon cards; on Saturdays, not on Mondays. Fair enough.
The market held our attention for much longer than we expected because it was selling stuff we haven't really seen before. But as the afternoon fades we have one last stop on the list - 798 Art District in Dashanzi.
798 Art District is a massive contemporary art and retail space set in a decommissioned 1950s era electronics manufacturing hub. A very cool space for it, reminding us of back home in the Inner West.
Unfortunately nothing is really grabbing us here. I'm sure if you picked the right spots or galleries it would be cool, but we are mostly seeing touristy shops and cafe/bars with white tourists in them. Not really our vibe, so we call it a day and head back to our Hutong hood.
Coming back into the hutongs in a didi is an interesting experience at this time of night. A lot of mexican stand-offs between cars and bikes and pedestrians. The lanes are narrow and the lighting is perfect for photo shoots, so the laneways are packed. Oh, and it's autumn so the trees are throwing out brilliant colours. Even more reason for photos. We decide to bail out of the Didi and go on foot at a quicker pace. Good luck, guy.
We loved the jianbing so much this morning we get one for dinner. It's cheap and has a couple of eggs in it, which we are craving. We take them back to our hotel rooftop and eat outside with a little 300ml yanjing beer. A nice way to finish our Beijing stay, despite the slight taste of smog in the air.
