As mentioned, I made The Temple of Heaven, Tian'an Men Square and The Forbidden City.

I'd read something about a "mandatory bag check" at The Forbidden City in the Frommer's book, so I decided not the bring my backpack in case "bag check" meant that I would have to leave it behind at the entrance. Since I would need a lot of pockets, I wore a pair of what I refer to as my "space alien" pants since they're the only thing I brought that would have enough room for the guidebook, my wallet, change, passport, camera bits and water bottles. Now, I call them "space alien" pants because when I wear them in the States that's the way people tend to look at me. To complete the outfit, I was wearing a black party t-shirt and my tattoo themed black hoodie. It turned out that I'd misunderstood and they were putting bags through the x-ray machine.

I started off by taking a taxi just before 7am to Nan Tian Men, the Temple of Heaven south gate. Friends who'd previously visited Beijing had recommended showing up at the Temple around dawn to catch the locals performing Tai Chi and other exercises and I am glad that I took their advice. The Temple seems to be the local place to come for morning exercise. People were jogging, doing Tai Chi alone and in groups, performing martial arts, participating in other exercises and, in some cases, just walking around singing. I wandered around the southern portion of the Temple grounds for well over an hour without seeing another tourist. Most of the people there were older, many outright elderly, and I saw very few locals whom I'd place at around my age. Quite simply, it was one of the most peaceful places that I've ever been and several times I was nearly moved to tears by the simple serenity that I felt.



Finding myself with some time to kill before the main buildings opened at 8am, I found a bench near one of the groups engaged in Tai Chi and sat to meditate for fifteen or twenty minutes. It was the first time that I'd sat in months but I couldn't think of any better way to honor the sense of historical presence that I felt. When I opened my eyes, I discovered that one couple had installed themselves for their Tai Chi only about ten feet off to my right. As I got up and started to walk away, I noticed a group of women gaping open mouthed at me. I smiled and nodded a "nihao" in their direction and they all replied and then burst out laughing. With me...At me...I couldn't tell and didn't care. I got the impression that extravagantly dressed American tourists did not typically come to the Temple grounds to sit perfectly still in half lotus for twenty minutes but I generally seemed to be regarded with expressions of benign bemusement.

I walked in the direction of the Fasting Palace and bought my entrance ticket. The young man working the entrance stopped me and pointed out the the ticket would also get me into the Divine Music Administration, a building I'd been planning to skip. He pointed out that it was nearly 9am and if I hurried, I could catch the performance so off I went. I'm deeply grateful to him, since I really like traditional Chinese music and had no idea that there was a performance at all:



I was one of only three people there to watch the show. After the performance, I wandered north in the direction of The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests (Qian Dian), which is the main building as far as tourists go. The closer I got to it, the more people there were especially as it was growing later in the day.



I had a really neat experience as I was leaving the Hall to head north towards Tian'an Men. One of the things that some of the locals were doing for exercise was to toss soft, cloth covered rings of about 14" in diameter back and forth. I'd seen many people doing this over the course of my walk, but outside the Hall was a group of six men apparently in their 60s and 70s who were catching them around their necks. It was very impressive to watch as the throwers were so accurate that the receivers would hardly have to move. I stood there for awhile, staring, trying to decide whether or not to take a picture (I decided it would be rude) and then turned to go. As I was turning, one of them called out "hi!" to me and made a throwing motion with one of the rings. I nodded to him and he proceeded to toss five of them to me. Of the first four, I caught two in my hand and had two bounce off the top of my head...Eyes on the ball...Eyes on the ball...But I managed to catch the fifth one around my neck and they all applauded. When I went to throw the rings back, I discovered that it was much harder than it looked but the guy, who must have been in his 70s, made a couple of really impressive running catches around his neck. We waved to each other and I continued north.

(Full Temple of Heaven set here)

The approximately three kilometer walk through Beijing to Tian'an Men was relatively uneventful, except for one trike rider who accosted me near the Square and insisted on providing me with a service. He simply would not take no for an answer. He actually made three separate passes at me, riding off for a few seconds prior to returning to try again. For the sake of storytelling, I'll embellish and tell it as a single conversation while leaving out the most repetitive parts. To complete the scene in your mind, you'll need to picture me continuing to walk, delivering most of my responses over my shoulder while passing Chinese women giggled at my attempts to get rid of the guy.

Him: Hello! *pointing at his passenger seat* (I've discovered that "hello!" is often the first sign that I'm about to have the hard sell put on me...)
Me: No thank you. I don't want a ride.
Him: Where you go?
Me: No, thanks.
Him: You go to Tian'an Men Square?
Me: No, no thank you.
Him: Come on, no money!
Me: Wo bu yao! (No, I don't want...)
Him: I take you to hutong. You get massage. (The hutongs are the old neighborhoods that are apparently being bulldozed to make room for other things. I haven't actually been in one.)
Me: No!
Him: You want massage?
Me: No!!
Him: It cheaper there!
Me: No! I don't want a massage!
Him: Come on! No money!
Me: I don't care if it's no money! No!

Tian'an Men was in some ways what I expected China to be like, based on the anti-Communist propaganda that Americans must endure: lots of soldiers and police, red Chinese flags everywhere, Soviet-esque buildings and the like:

  

(Full Tian'an Men Square set here)

Overall, the Forbidden City was a wash for me. It was interesting to see the unrestored buildings, but like a staff member at the Temple of Heaven told me, the Temple was built as a miniature Imperial Palace and aside from scale, the two sites are very similar architecturally. Plus, it was too crowded, especially after the Temple's serenity. There might have been something different in the sections I didn't visit, but I was tired and didn't bother to penetrate very deeply into the complex. My advice is that if you're only interested in the architecture and don't care about the museum exhibits at the Palace (each of which are an extra charge) or if, like me, you have an aversion to areas which are particularly dense with tourists, just hit the Temple of Heaven at dawn via the Nan Tien Men.



(Full Forbidden City set here)

Even though I could have skipped out on the Forbidden City, my visit there ended on a high note. While on my way out, near the main gate, I got the familiar "hello!" which immediately put me on my defensive, but this time it was different. The speakers turned out to be two attractive, twenty-something Chinese women walking arm in arm who spoke excellent English. We got to talking. They turned out to be from a small town is the northeast of China and had stopped me to find out if I was a rock star or something. They seemed to be genuinely interested in just talking to such an unusual specimen of an American as me. Once they saw my earrings under my hoodie, they exclaimed about how unusual they are so I took the hood down to give them a better look. I got the usual "doesn't that hurt?" but they honestly seemed to never have seen big earrings like mine before. They wanted to hear what life was like in the States right now so I bitched about Bush, the war and the current economic slowdown affecting a lot of people. Since many of my coworkers call each other by their English names, I took the opportunity to ask the girls if it was common for Chinese people to take English names. Yes, turns out that is quite fashionable among young people. They were surprised to find out that I was married and that I was 35 - they had me pegged for 25 - and we talked a bit about our cultural impressions of when it was the correct time to marry and have kids. I wound up walking out of the Palace with them and back onto the main street, where they invited me to join them for a coffee. Now, they were SO not setting off my scam detectors but I was pretty tired after my experience on the Wall the day before and the probably ten today miles I'd walked since dawn, so I politely declined their offer.

It was a good day.