Howie Here...
We went out on our own on January 10th and were fortunate to happen upon a great park outside the Temple of Heaven that reminded me in many ways of Central Park in NYC. We were there in the middle of the day on a work day, so most of the people we encountered were retirees. Let me tell you - these people know how to retire. We saw people playing with hackey-sac type things, lots of Tai Chi groups, people playing ping-pong, practicing ballroom dancing, playing with some really cool whirling things (I bought one and will attempt to impress my Chinese friends at home one day), and general fun. We were even invited to play a fun game involving a rubber ball and two paddles.
After a long walk in the park, we walked through the Temple of Heaven. It was very cool, but most of the temples started to look alike at this point. This temple does have a really neat structure that amplifies your voice (my attempt at this was heard all over the city) and an echo wall, though we failed at our attempts to carry our voices.
Side note - outside the temple structure are several maps outlining points of interest around the park. In several locations, one can find "Divine Kitchens", which are universally located next to "Animal-Killing Pavilions."
We then went for a long and random walk through the city, which was really cool. We strolled past some of the doomed hutongs, saw a great vegetable market tucked away in an alley, and finally took a cab to a famous vegetarian restaurant only to find that the whole block had been demolished. So much for maps in Beijing!
After our long, pleasurable and final afternoon in Beijing we checked out of our hotel and departed for Xian.
