Packed up, checked out and headed to the subway station to go to the Temple of Heaven. We were hungry by he time we got there and I could not face any more vegetable noodles so, since we had heard that KFC served all sorts of 'proper' rice based meals, we ended up there. I ended up with a shrimp burger, which was very tasty, if not a bit odd, and a welcome relief from pasta.
At the park of the Temple of Heaven, we walked down the 'Long Corridor', which was chock- full of old people playing cards and people selling little animals, bags and hats that they were crocheting on the spot.
The 'Long Corridor' linked 'The Animal Killing Pavilion' to the Main building: the 'Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest'. It was quite impressive building and was architecturally significant because the wooden pillars supported the ceiling without any nails or cement. It was built 1420, was hit by lightening and burnt down in 1889, and was rebuilt in 1890. It was beautifully decorated with recurring images of dragons, painted in blue, red and gold.
I particularly liked the section with the '70 Year Door'. The emporer's men had built it when he was 70 and was finding it hard to make complete the full procession required of him. He gratefully recieved it but was worried that his kids might get lazy and so decreed that none of them could use it until they were also 70. None of them lived to 70 and so he was the only person to ever use it. Matt didn't see it though because he was busy taking too many pictures of someone elses wedding.
Other attractions included 'Round Alter' which was based around multiples of the number 9 and had a central spot which 'made your voice sonorous'. Matt stood on it to sing a song but chickened-out so we don't know if it worked or not. The acoustics in there must have been quite good though because there was a man talking so loud on his mobile that he could have been communicating with someone on the moon.
Nearby, there was also the Imperial Vault of Heaven, an octaganol building with an echo wall but Matt lost the ticket at the 'Round Alter' and so we could only peek at it from a distance.
We explored park a little more and found the 'garden of 100 flowers' where all the flowers were wrapped up in green tarp against the cold, as well as unstoppable dancing troup of middle aged people and various singers and musicians - one of which turned out to be a lampost!
We'd been promising ourselves Beijing duck but we had to set off for the train 2 and half hours early because of the traffic so there was no time. After our second fast food joint of the day (the Chinese have ruined McDonald's burgers by making them taste of eyeballs!), I lamented the loss of Indian food and that the only thing that I wanted to try in China was out of reach.
We used the little sign provided by the hostel to catch our first bus and tell the conductor where we wanted to go. Beijing West station is ginormous. The electronic board didn't give platform details but waiting room numbers which filtered off into four different gates, which in turn led to 12 different platforms for that waiting room. Our ticket was swopped for a different one before boarding the train and we assumed it would be the one that opened the gate at Pingyao.
The immediate difference that we noticed compared to Indian trains was that they were warmer, and each bed had its own duvet and pillow. It was generally much quieter without mobile phones and shouted conversations but there was piped music and we had to have a giggle at the announcements that had been translated into English. Each section also had a giant hot water flask but although I had my supply of tea bags, I didn't have a cup to hold it nor enough head room to drink it in.
Despite the improvement in conditions, a combination of the fact that we couldn't chain our bags up and fear of missing our early morning stop meant that we didn't get much sleep. The incessant coughing of the guy in the bed below mine added to our restlessness and the frequent punctuation of loud burps and farts meant that we were often shocked out of any sleep we had managed to grab.
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