Roaming with Roy!

August 27th 2017

It's now 2pm and we are slightly less sleep deprived, showered and dressed appropriately for the weather, that is, raincoats and hiking boots.

We sauntered downstairs to the hotel lobby and met with our tour guide for the afternoon; his name was Roy. He told us his real name but as he said, Roy is much easier to remember! We headed to get a taxi to our first stop on the tour, the Lama Temple. After trying to hail a cab for 5 minutes (there were loads but none of them wanted to use the meter), Roy thought it best we take the subway. We were a bit daunted at the prospect of this but now realise that it is the most efficient and cost effective method of transport in Beijing. 

On entry to each subway station, you "voluntarily" (really means "must") put your bag through the security checkpoint; after that, you can buy a ticket. We were herded from one line to the other, through the mass of people; it's like London at rush hour, only its rush hour all the time!

After a short walk from the subway station, we arrived at the Lama temple; Roy explained the history of the temple and told us about each dynasty from the 13th century up to present day. This is the most important Tibetan Buddhist temple outside of Tibet; it was a fascinating place. We burned some incense sticks and watched many people worshipping the Buddha statues including one which is gold, 18 metres tall and carved out of a single piece of sandalwood.




We then visited Guozijian Imperial College where the brightest students were once educated for government positions followed by a visit to Confucius Temple; this was a beautiful place with a lovely courtyard and would have been great to walk around had it not been pouring rain. By 5.30pm, we were soaked through; it appears my waterproof jacket is not so waterproof! We now realise why all Beijingers use an umbrella rather than a waterproof jacket!

After the tour of the temples, Roy took us to a restaurant for dumplings and beer! We had some pork dumplings, pork and prawn dumplings, meatballs and something that looked like spaghetti bolognese but it was super spicy and full of peanuts! We also had some sweet donut type thing which was delicious. 

Roy asked us if we needed his help to get back to the hotel but we were starting to get brave and decided to try and navigate the subway ourselves; it didn't take us long to work it out as the govenerment had all the signage and ticket machines updated to include English. We got back to Beijing Central Station which was across the road from our hotel at around 7.30pm.

A wine was definitely required! It had been a tiring but successful day. An early night was on the cards as my new best friend, our tour guide for the next day, kept sending me whatsapp messages making our meet-up time earlier and earlier........







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