September 10 (Friday): Temple of Heaven (天壇) and Wangfucheng (王府井)

My daughter has gone to London to attend her friend’s wedding. So we’d be on our own for the next eight days. We took the MTR to the Temple of the Heaven (天壇) in the morning and spent about two hours there. As I said the place is almost the same as thirty years ago except for the barricades at the Echo Wall and inside the Heavenly Temple. We paid full fares (50% discount as senior) to visit the Heavenly Temple (祈年殿), Imperial Valve of Temple (皇穹宇) and the Circular Mould Altar (還丘壇). We couldn’t find the Old Beijing Noodle Shop (老北京炸醬麵) recommended by my classmate as it has since moved we’d beef rice at Yoshinoya (吉野家), a fast-food chain instead. Then we left for Wangfucheng (王府井), the so called “First Street of China”. It’s a pedestrian only street lined with various types of shops especially those selling memorabilia. And there also located the renaissance style St Joseph or the East Church (聖若瑟主教座堂 -東堂), one of the four famed catholic cathedrals in Beijing. During our visit four youths were listening to a priest (I assumed) inside the church and three were skate-boarding outside at the church square. The evening mass hour at 16:30 is much earlier than most places, says, like Hong Kong and London. Seemingly we’d miss two Sunday masses while we’re in China.

For dinner we patronised Annie’s Italian Restaurant, the branch opposite to Ascott. It offers a good range of tasty Italian cuisine. We’d Frutti di Mare Spaghetti and Saltimbacca alla Romana, both were quite good. Since it costs only RMB15 (RMB35 @ Made-In-China) for a large bottle (700ml +/-) of Beijing beer (燕京純生) at most restaurant (without any service charge too) it has become my official beverage in Beijing.


Camera Equipment:
Camera: Nikon D3 & F6 plus Panasonic LX3
Lens: AFS 17-35/f2.8 (mostly on F6) and AFS 70-200/f2.8 (D3)
Singh-Ray Filters: i) Gold N Blue Polarizer, ii) LB Color Combo Polarizer, iii) Daryl Benson ND-3 Reverse Graduate and iv) Galen Rowell ND-3G Hard Step.
Film (for F6): 8 rolls of Kodak Ektar and 1 roll of Fujicolor – all 100 ISO

NB: Photos without metadata were taken by Nikon F6, the film camera