20250828 Thursday, August 28, 2025. Temple of Heaven,Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City and Lama Temple
The Hotel Mercure’s breakfast is a first class layout, much like you’d expect from a business class hotel like Hyatt. They had automated self service espresso drink machines to start our motors, in addition to both an extensive spread of both western and Chinese breakfast food items. Our guide Kevin mentioned that many European tourists gorge themselves during the breakfast buffet and skip skip lunch during their tours.
The weather had improved markedly for us. It was no longer raining, and there were broken clouds in the sky to reduce the glare of the sun. The temperature was still close to 80º, but the humidity was signicantly lower, so it was fairly comfortable to walk around outdoors.
Our first stop was the Temple of Heaven. The crowds were pleasantly thin, so there was no pushing or shoving to see anything, and it was possible to take our time and see everything we wished to see. When we visited in 2006, the skies opened up and poured down on us. Today, it was very pleasant. Kevin explained the rituals that took place here with the preparation and presentation of offerings to the plethora of gods to assure success for the Emperor and his people. It is a beautiful and iconic site.
We then got shuttled to near Tiananmen Square where we were pleasantly surprised to be able to walk up right past a blocks long cue of tourists hoping to buy individual admissions tickets. Travel China Guide had gotten our tickets long ago, and we were able to zip right up to the security check point. That saved us hours of standing in line.
Security around Tiananmen Square was insane. We had to be biometrically confirmed with our passports, pass through magnetometers, hand wanded, and then security agents, who were mostly female, patted us down, feeling and looking at anything in our pockets. En Route to Tiananmen Square, we had to pass through at least 3 similar check points. Security is extremely tight because China is preparing for a huge military parade to commemorate 80 years since its liberation from Japanese occupation at the end of WWII. Guests will include Vladimir Putin and Kim Jung Un. This parade will occur on September 3, but apparently, Kim is already in Beijing.
Skipping the line!
Closest we could get to Tiananmen Gate
We were unable to be able to get pictures in front of Tiananmen Gate, where the iconic image of Chairman Mao hangs. There are all sorts of temporary structures being built for the parade, so we ended up just walking around the perimeter and past the National Museum of China. We did see several young army soldiers changing the guard around Tiananmen Square, and ran into some of them goose stepping and drilling, presumably for their upcoming parade.
We continued walking a circuitous path with lots of U-Turns to navigate around to the side entrance of the Forbidden City. The main front entry is also closed in preparation for the parade. Even without going through the front gate, the complex is huge and still very impressive. The crowds were relatively light, and again, we were able to take our time and see everything we wanted and without the pushing and shoving we experienced at Shenyang’s Forbidden City.
We toured many of the buildings as Kevin explained their purposes and the structure within the Forbidden City. In the main hall where the Emperor conducted all his official business, there is only one chair in the building- a low throne. All the Emperor’s officials had to stand or prostrate themselves in the Emperor’s presence. Because he was the only one in the building with a chair, the title “Chairman” was born.
We also learned about the Emperor’s wives, concubines, and eunuchs. Despite his position, Emperor’s lead relatively hazardous lives and had life expectancies less than the general population at the time. There was a lot of shady maneuvering going on among the relatives, wives and concubines involving attainment of power. We visited the residence of the Dowager Empress who ruled China for 48 years in the stead of her child emperor son, who met an untimely death, and also ruled on behalf of his successor, who was only 4 years old when he acceded to the Emperor’s throne. The imperial era ended before he could ever rule as Emperor.
We did a lot of walking today, with my watch recording over 17,000 steps and 7.49 miles. We were tired and unlike the Europeans, ready for a lunch. Kevin took us to a nice restaurant called Dawanju, which specialized in Beijing cuisine. We had quite the feast featuring another Peking Duck, in addition to lots of other dishes served with pancakes, and a soup with sweet pea greens and corn. There was also grilled eel, which surprizingly you can eat bones and all the way they prepare it. There were also green onion pancakes and Kung Pao chicken. Even with all the big boys at the table, it took a while for them to get through most of the food. We were certainly ready for naps after that meal, although the nutrition also gave us a bit of a second wind, which was necessary to get us through our final tour site.
The Lama temple is a Tibetan Buddhist complex which is quite large with lots of Buddhist worshippers burning incense, bowing, and making offerings to progressively larger Buddhas in the complex. At the very back of the complex is a giant standing Buddha which measures 85’ in height from the base of its underground pedestal to the top of its crown. It was carved from a single piece of White Sandalwood and was a gift from the 7th Dalai Lama to the Quanlong Emperor. It took 3 years to transport it from Tibet to Beijing. It is covered in gold leaf and quite an impressive sight. Unfortunately, no photography of it is allowed. As far as religious iconography goes, it is quite impressive.
We were pretty wiped out by the full day of touring and had to rest up with naps before venturing back out.
John and Price got a load of wash started and were ready to head out again, as well as Franklin and Amber. We took a DiDi (Chinese version of Uber) to the Decathlon mall, which was about 4 miles away. Connor and DJ were raving about what a good deal outdoor gear was there, and said there was also an attached mall. The cab fare for a 6 person DiDi (minivan with captain’s seats) was less than $6.
The Decathlon store looked a bit like John’s Sporting goods, but carries store brands. There were some items like water bottles that seemed to be a decent value but we looked at rain coats and the prices were basically the same as they are in the US. John and Price did end up buying rain coats because they had not packed any, and both got quite wet yesterday. Ben found Keene like water shoes but the prices were virtually the same as in the US, so there’s no need to purchase them now and lug them around China for a month.
We took another DiDi back to the Hopson Mall, where we had eaten yesterday, but got there as most of the restaurants were closing down (around 9:30pm). We spotted a KFC across the street, but discovered this location is strictly online ordering only for pick up and delivery, but John managed to talk someone into placing an order for him. Ben, Price and Franklin had all given up when the QR code they wanted us to scan to download the App was a dead end. They went next door to McDonalds, where they have self service kiosks, which are hard to mess up.
Tomorrow we tour the Summer Palace and Great Wall. We may run into troubles because of rehearsals for the September 3 military parade, which will shut down many streets in Beijing, but hopefully Kevin will manage, like he managed to get us around Tiananmen Square successfully.
