This morning we went with our guide to the Temple of Heaven. The sun was shining brightly and the tourists were out in force.
Our guide steered us quickly through the turnstiles and told us that it was so much quieter than when he last visited.
The history of the site is very complicated but it was built between 1406 and 1420 and was based on mathematical lines.
Some numbers in China are also thought of as very unlucky such as number four which sounds like the word death, and some are good, particularly number eight which is supposed to bring prosperity.
Nine is also a good one and the Temple has nine pillars.
It was also made of sandalwood and was hit by a lightening strike in 1895. The outside was covered in tiles and initially didn't burn, but the sandalwood caught fire inside and a beautiful smell wafted across the whole city for days.
Unfortunately they had to completely rebuild it, this time in pine and it has a lightening conductor on the top now.
The rest of the area is a complicated mass of paving slabs laid out in the nine times table, then sets of three pillars times three, etc.
Our afternoon outing to the Summer Palace was much simpler because we went on our own without reading much about it in advance.
The whole area has been used by the great, good, and sometimes bad of Beijing for nearly 1,000 years. Today it is a park open to the public and three quarters of the area is water. We went on a little boat trip to get across to the other side.
There are lots of separate buildings and beautiful spots to enjoy the views, and by this time the sun was starting to go down.
We left the park and caught the Metro to the Olympic park to see the Birds Nest stadium.
Along side it is a huge pedestrianised walkway and we wandered along it to the next metro station and then back to our hotel.
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