Day 5

Today we thought we'd give the subway a go. It was actually pretty awesome. Cheap too. 2 RMB lets you ride wherever you want. Score, no more haggling cabs for us!

We started the day by going to the Temple of Heaven where the Chinese emperors used to offer sacrifices and prayers for good harvests. The temple is located in a pretty large park where people do various activities such as dancing, Tai Chi, what looks like a type of foot badminton, etc. (MIC = 18) with a number of historical buildings in it (including the temple). Most of the people doing stuff were old (ah, retirement). I got to scratch my sporting itch from time to time as well. This would often attract attention (hey, look at the white guy). But they all seem stoked that I participated.

This one activity involved throwing rings to a partner and catching them on your head. He did this during the Olympics and showed us news paper clippings. This was one of my attempts...

After the Temple of Sports (Heaven), we saw that there was a theme park on the map close by. Despite our epic walking a couple of days ago, it seemed more of a struggle today. So after a while we decided to cab it (MIC = 19). The cabby said that the park wasn't open. Well, that's what it seemed like she was saying. It could have easily been "You're not so good catching rings on your head".

So instead, we went to the markets (MIC = 25). While we were there, we attempted to look for Megatron, to complete my set. He's been a slippery little sucker, and we've never found him. Today, we found a used version out of his box. Yesterday, we found a box without Megatron. At least we know where he ended up. If anything at least the Chinese markets have tought me how say 'no'.

Turns out that the Beijing 2010 Combat Games are currently on right now. Wicked! Let's get tickets! It felt a lot like going to the Kungfu show the other night. Running around China with a piece of paper saying where we need to go, and asking locals where 'this' is. Also having no clue what the place actually is. We just know we buy tickets there... On the 7th floor of a building, and several locals later, we found it (MIC = 30). Tomorrow night, we're watching the Muay Thai Semi finals!


During our adventure we walked past this floating tea fountain which was pretty cool:

Dinner was also cool. We were starving as we hadn't had lunch because we'd been so exhausted by the time we got back from the Temple that all we wanted to do was sit in air conditioned comfort for a while and then we had to dash off to find the ticket box office for the Combat Games before they closed. It involved going to a relatively classy but local place (MIC = 32), pointing at the menu, and hoping that we didn't order dog. If we did, then it tasted like chicken and was one of the best meals of the trip.


After dinner We made our way to Tiananmen Square to watch the flag lowering ceremony. We were pushing it to get there in time. But we saw that the flag was still up. Awesome! But Tiananmen square is huge and as we got closer we saw the flag starting going down. We got there in time to kind of see the last few meters of the lowering.

Damn there were a lot of people there. I think that there were more people at this one daily event than there was in the Hobart show! The crowd just completely dispersed though once the flag was lowered. We strolled back to our hotel slowly with the hordes leaving the square and called it a day.


Tomorrow - the Forbidden City...