First off, my confession is that I did not make it to The Great Wall of China.  I know, scandalous, but my priorities were always Huangshan and, as far as Beijing was concerned, The Forbidden City.  So this choice of sight comes with the huge caveat that I can’t comment on The Great Wall of China.

The Temple of Heaven is easily accessible from the metro station (provided you don’t listen to any naughty rickshaw drivers who may send you in the wrong direction so that one of their mates can pick you up on the long route!) 

But maybe it was a good thing to enter the Temple of Heaven park from this side, as a few steps inside the North Gate entrance I saw a wonderful thing. An enormous sound system strapped to a trolley blasting out loud Chinese music; and 3 or 4 different groups of people all dancing quite differently to the same music; some were ballroom dancing, some belly dancing, the rest I couldn’t even describe. Too tired to join in I sat on a bench next to an old woman. At first she was a bit unnerved by the fact I was smiling my head off, then she nudged me and (I’m guessing) told me to get up and join in. When I smiled and shook my head, she just shrugged and got up and showed me her moves. It was wonderful to see and I finally felt like I had found the heart of Beijing. And yes it was also sad, to think that for so many years the Chinese people have been prevented from getting together to let their hair down, and, as I looked at them dancing, all I could think was that these are a people who know how to party.

As I carried on around the gardens there were more groups, organised dancing (maybe a Chinese Zumba Fitness class?), a choir, kite flyers, people with those long coloured strings... (apparently it’s called rhythmic gymnastics - check out my Videos page to see more).  I didn’t even go into the main section of the Temple of Heaven - for me it was enough to soak up the atmosphere outside. The walkway back to the entrance was immense enough and I had read that it was a smaller replica of the Forbidden City, so maybe next time I would forget the big City and the fading sad chi of the forgotten concubines, and come here (where the Emperor had to be celibate) and feel the beating heart of Beijing.