Tuesday, June 28th - Last Day in Beijing......

Tuesday was my last day in Beijing......and therefore I will simply continue on with the list of the venues I visited.....

6. The 798 Art District - this was surprisingly VERY cool!!! 

- This little community is considered modern Chinese Art’s premier zone, and is located on a former factory site. The factory has been converted into numerous little galleries, boutiques, restaurants and shops. I spent several hours wandering around this area.

7. Ancient observatory – it is kind of laughable to have any "star gazing places" in Beijing these days because you would need the Hubble telescope to see through the haze, but this was a cool little place to visit right close to the hotel....and for 10RMB you can take a quick tour of this ancient China astronomy.

8. Ritan Park

This is the oldest park in Beijing dating back to 1530 and is located in Beijing's diplomatic quarter. It was a great place to recharge and grab a beer at a nice little bar located on a pretty little lake.

9. The Embassy Area

This is an area within the city that contains most of the various countries embassy's. It was neat to simply walk around and see them (Canada's embassy is not located in this area....I think we are just to "new" a country to have secured some land when all the countries were staking their building sites!)

10. The Dongeuy Temple - This temple is located near Ritan park, and is an active place of worship for Taoist monks. It was a strange place - where they had all these little rooms that represented different Taoist departments - like the Department for Wandering ghosts, the Life and Death Department, the Department of Good Fortune etc. etc......it was weird, but really interesting!!!!

While I have seen quite a few "temples", this is one that is "a must see" in my books.

11. The Front Gate – this is technically really two gates, and was the largest gate of the nine gates that were around the Beijing“inner city” wall. This is at the very South end of Tienanmen Square and was part of the city’s defense system. Not much to see, but great for "pictures"

....and lastly, just all the various sites located in, around and all over the city!!!!!

Other than the unbearable heat, the other main difference versus my first trip to Beijing was that there also seemed to be more people this time around (if that is possible?).

I think the tourist season had really gotten into full swing, and at a number of the popular/well known attractions there were tons of tour buses, which of course just adds to the mass of people....

...and maybe it was the heat, or the crush of people.....or more likely just the fact that I really was ready to come home, but I did not enjoy the city as much this time around. It was great to see everything and the amount of history present in the city is mind-boggling...but I could tell (especially on Tuesday)...that it was time to catch a plane!