Sophie's travels 2011-2012: 22/2/2012 Beijing, China

We got up and going early today and set off for the Pearl market where we got a few quick bargains then walked over to the Temple of Heaven.

The Temple of Heaven is set in another amazing park where people set up their speakers and music and sing and dance around which is cool. It was another bad smog day which meant poor visibility for the temple but it was still cool to see and soak up the atmosphere.

From there we made our way to the Lama Temple which was really amazing. Inside there was an 18 metre tall carved tree in the shape of Buddha. There were many different parts to the temple with lots of incense and colour and prayer - great atmosphere and really cool to see.

We went back into the city and across to the art street where Andrea and Chris stocked up on supplies before we checked out a new restaurant near the hostel for ‘linner’.

The restaurant had won awards for its Peking duck and we soon realised why – it was AMAZING!! All the food was brilliant, but the duck in particular was spectacular, it was wheeled out on a trolley as a whole duck then carved in front of us then wrapped into pancake rolls with a load of condiments to top it off! Food heaven!

After ‘linner’ Andrea and I walked back into the city and I purchased a ski jacket which I had been eyeing off for a while and we explored some of the massive shopping centres. On the walk home it was quite windy which was actually a relief because it blew the smog away for a while.