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Old 12 Nov 19, 09:55 AM  
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NeeNeeWong
Getting Excited
 
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Join Date: Mar 14
Beijing and HK Nov 2019 - Day3

Today we led the hotel at 9 and we were heading to the temple of heaven.
This was probably the closest to us on the subway, in 10 minutes we had arrived. Trip cost: 2yuan.

Our stop was at tiantandongmen and we left out of exit A. If you turn right as soon as you are out of the station the east gate entrance is right there.

We bought the through tickets, in low season this is 28yuan each. It gives you access to the hall of prayer for gods of harvest, echo wall and circular mound.

We started off heading towards the hall of prayer (the main photo you find if you search for temple of heaven) but we detoured to the right as there was another ticketed entrance to a small space. Turns out to be the animal sacrifice pavilion. Here you can pick up a free ticket to get in but you have to show them your passport to get a ticket. Something to remember over here it’s law to carry your passport. I don’t like it but later on there was a stop at one of the entrances to the subway and they were checking IDs, so for the first time we had to show it (and twice in a day!)

We wondered around the animal sacrifice building and then went onto the next one, the kitchen a little further down, still on the way to the main temple. Both had a small amount of English so you could kind of tell what was going on.

We then continued on to the main temple. After all we saw yesterday at the summer palace I wasn’t as impressed with this one. I couldn’t tell you why, but it just seemed so small. Apparently the park itself is bigger than the forbidden city, but the rest of the park is mainly lots of very straight lined trees with people doing tai chi in the middle now and then.

We went down the main long path to the echo wall, it was quite funny to see lots of people shouting at the walls and we couldn’t really hear any echos because it was either too noisy around you or the people on the other side were just shouting.

Next to this is the circular mound, but the same surrounding is around the main temple. So we decided to then walk back through the park instead of the main routes to see if anything interesting was going on. We didn’t find anything. We thought we saw a mall on the way in and we were hungry, turns out to be the pearl market. We had read about this but hadn’t really looked it up.

We went down to the food hall and there are loads of different sections with variety or choices, like noodles, dim sum, rice and so on, you pick what you want and they pay by wechat, but as we were cash, we were directed to the cashier in the corner. We decided on fresh meat wonton noodle soup each and the beef friend dumplings to share. They made the fresh right there, she does it so quickly! They were delicious. Also, plenty of English spoken here and at the market above.

This may be TMI... Warning: do NOT use the toilets here. They were awful. If you have to go, use the temple ones. One thing to remember for all of Beijing is always take your own tissue and prepare to practise your squat position for as long as you can pee for. Also remember hand sanitiser as they often run out of soap.

We then headed up to the market, it’s kind of like your Sunday market in your local town but full of gifts/ souvenirs. I wanted a qinpao (Chinese dress) and Chris got the male equivalent. We had read at the Silk market you could try to get them down to about 400, but you may need to haggle hard. So we gave it a go here. He started of with a “good price” 2300 for 2. Wait what!? A good price. We said no, he immediately halved to 1200. Chris only had 300 on him as we weren’t expecting to find this place today. So we said to him we only have 300 cash, we could tell from his face that he was ready to tell us to leave then his wife pitched in - we take card. So we said okay, 600. Back and forth he kept lowering, 1100, 1000. Each time we were edging away. Chris tried to leave one side and his wife walked over to block Chris so I left the other side, just about to step out “ok, ok, 600” throwing his calculator over the dresses. We had heard that they try this to make you feel bad, but we did not! We find it funny as we are used to Spanish markets and haggling and we had read if you can get for 400 each then you are doing good. So two items down and card payment later we were off to find out next bargain.

Also if there are two of you, if you know another language this is useful. We both know our French and Spanish numbers, as well as Cantonese. But we figured they may likely know Cantonese so picked between French and Spanish so they had no idea what numbers we were agreeing between us. This is the best English we have come across so far, but I guess they need it. A lot of haggling is done on the calc. So if they don’t know English numbers they can show you what they are offering. Tips from other forums, don’t feel sorry for them! When they throw their strop at the end that’s to wait to see if you go back up. One woman was ready to take another 10 out of chris’ hands until I pulled it away! It’s honestly not a bad place if you are strong at haggling and don’t get flustered. Just be ready to walk away and say no thanks to lots of people. Don’t like the price, somewhere else has the same thing likely cheaper.

We got two magnets for 10yuan in total, about £1, she started out at 80yen each! Downstairs the best the last would offer was 10yuan each. And then a dragon that you slot together for our nephew for 50. Again, this lady started out at 150, I said no messing, best is 50. She said no, 100 so we walked away, again accepting the 50. Either you’d start way to low and meet in the middle or say a lower number, gauge their reaction and then stick to it. It wasn’t too busy, but it was around 2pm. So maybe the main coaches from temple had left. It definitely looked busier on photos. They had everything here, fake clothes, toys, suitcases, bags and pearls. But we didn’t want anything else today so we left.

It was only around 3ish, so we thought we would try the sill market afterwards, you come straight off the subway into the market, if you locate the right exit, I think it was A, but I can’t remember. This felt more like a shopping centre, we didn’t like it. We had heard here if you try to haggle and walk away they shout at you. We didn’t even see anything that caught our eye, same stuff as pearl street. We even saw my dress, on its own, labelled up at 2495! So we quickly left and said if we wanted any more gifts we would pop back to pearl market on our last day.

Then we headed back to our room to chill, we didn’t want to talk anywhere else today and we are going to go out at 6ish to find hot pot.
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Edited at 09:27 AM.
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Old 12 Nov 19, 02:22 PM  
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NeeNeeWong
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Getting Excited
 
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Join Date: Mar 14
So we didn’t end up at hotpot. When we walked out it was still rather warm, we expected it to be getting cold as yesterday it was 17degrees, today 12 and tomorrow 8, but on the wall it’s 4! So we thought we would maybe have hotpot tomorrow to warm us up after our walk walk in the cold.

We ended up back at grandmas, this time knowing what we were doing.
We requested dumplings, we thought these were different to the other day, but we ended up with the same thing? And then we also tried different mains. Kung pao prawns had one chilli star, but it was okay for me and the prawns were battered. Also fried pork with dried meat, although it was actually dried pork meat fried with cabbage and spring onion, Chris said this reminded him of his childhood food (ratatouille moment). We also got sticky duck rice, it was super sticky and had more of a duck taste with only a little duck on top, I was expecting more. We both really like the prawns and pork. We also got mango juice, but it tasted really watery here. Because of our extra dish, it came to 143 yuan (£16).

We also found a bank of China to withdraw money from, easy peasy just like at home (we tried a different bank at first and it didn’t work so slightly panic mode)! So we don’t have to starve the rest of the week.

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DLP- 10, 13, 16

Edited at 09:28 AM.
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Old 12 Nov 19, 07:44 PM  
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Melbatb
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Another fab day! You are lucky bank of China worked as in HK it never works for my son - he has to use Hang Seng 😜

Great haggling! I love the color of your dress!
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Index of my trip reports
2016 Quebec - Kuala Lumpar - New York City 2017 Dubai - Eurocamps France - Ontario and Quebec - So-Cal 2018 Montreal - Bangkok - New England 2019 Argentina - Quebec City - Hong Kong - 2020 Switzerland 2022 Arizona - Costa Med Cruise - Oslo 2023 Hong Kong - Gothenburg
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