Today is the first day of the tour for the rest of our group. They will be leaving their homes and making the trek to China, arriving some time tonight or early tomorrow morning.
For us, it is our last day on our own. We have decided to once again use the subway, this time to visit the Lama Temple and the Silk Mall. We verified with the concierge before leaving the hotel to make sure that we knew which stops to get off at. Miscalculating a stop means walking an extra mile or so, and our feet are in bad shape at this point so we want to be accurate in our destinations.
We both brought shoes that we have used multiple times before for trips like this, but for some reason (I think it’s the humidity), my shoes are giving me blisters on the tops and bottoms of my toes. So yesterday at the mall I stopped and purchased a pair of really light-weight tennis shoes to see if they will help. I wore them the rest of the day yesterday, and so far so good! I certainly don’t want to start the tour with bad feet since there is always a lot of walking involved once the tour starts.
We waited till 9:00 before heading out on today’s journey. The rush hour commuters certainly didn’t need us in their way as they try to get to work.
Today our experience at the subway ticket machines was much easier. We did it all by our own "big" selves, without any difficulties at all. We’re also starting to figure out how to determine which exit to use when leaving the subway station to keep our walk to a minimum.
Our first stop was the Yonghegong Lama Temple, the largest Tibetan Buddhist temple in Beijing.
The Lama Temple was built in 1694 as the palace of Prince Yong of the Qing Dynasty. In 1744, his successor Emperor Qianlong changed the palace into a Lama temple. Although there is not a lot of religion in china, this is still a functioning Buddhist Temple. The entry fee of 25 Yuan included a bundle of incense for use at the altars.
Once inside the gate, we walked through a long shaded corridor before reaching the temple.
There were large incense pots outside of each building.
When we finished at the temple, we jumped back on the subway and headed toward the Silk Market which is on the east side of Beijing. We had to transfer from the 5 line to the 1 line to get there, and when we got to the 1 line, we realize that this must have been the original subway line in Beijing. It is much older and worn than the newer lines in the middle of the city. I'm glad we had the chance to experience the newer subway lines before riding this one, or we might not have been so excited about it.
When we emerged from the subway, we looked around, and were surrounded by sky scrapers. It felt like a very spacious, spread out Manhattan. Right across from the subway entrance was the Silk Market.
These flags are outside of the silk market.
It is a mall of small shops that is supposed to be one of the shopping hot spots in Beijing. The entire building was under construction and covered in scaffolding, so we don’t really know what it looks like from the outside. The subway entrance was in the middle of the road between the two directions of traffic, and right across the street from the Silk Market.
We walked inside, and it was a bunch of small stall shops organized by floor. We really didn’t need anything, but just wanted to check it out. We are trying to find attractions that are easy to get to by subway and won't be repeated when our tour starts.
I have to say that we weren’t that impressed with the shops. The few things that we did bargain for were way over-priced, and even when we tried to get the price down, it was still expensive. We felt like we were bargaining with vendors in Mexico, only worse. We did not enjoy the experience, so we headed upstairs to the food court to see what was available for lunch. There were about eight restaurants to choose from, and we ended up at a noodle bowl café. We each got a noodle bowl for lunch with no drinks for a total of 80 Yuan, which was about $12.00. It wasn’t even a good deal! We’ve had much better, cheaper food in other places, so this would not be on our list of places we need to return to.
We got ourselves some noodle bowls with grilled chicken.
The food court was really busy with people that worked in the area, which surprised us because we really didn't think the food prices were any better than the merchandise prices, but maybe this is a more expensive area than we realized.
When we left the Silk Market, we wandered across the street and wandered around for a few minutes, then headed back to the subway to head back to the hotel.
We were glad that we enjoyed other parts of Beijing first, and left this one for last, because it didn’t leave us with a great impression. This really would not have been a good place to start, but now that we know there are so many great places to visit in Beijing, and that they are all so accessible by subway, we really like this city!
We keep seeing these shared used bikes all over the city. In the U.S. when there are shared used bikes, they are parked at shared use stations, but here we just keep seeing them everywhere. There don't seem to be any stations, just bikes sitting around.
They have these bar codes on them that must be used for renting them. We are curious, so maybe we can ask Jason once we join our tour group.
As we walked back to the hotel from our final subway ride, we stopped into a little convenience store and got ourselves some nice cold ice cream.
The temps in Beijing this time of year are hot and steamy, so ice cream was the perfect treat!
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