The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests

Today we spent a lot of time on our feet.

We wandered the hutongs just to the east of our hotel, stopping off at Lao She's house, of course before heading to the big pedestrianised shopping street, Wangfujingdagie.

We wandered up a very scary street of food vendors, hawking such delicacies as live scorpions on skewers and starfish. I'm sure my nose will never recover.

We wandered (after getting a taxi first) all over the market at Panjiayuan which is absolutely amazing and was well worth the strange taxi driver.

We then, finally, wandered all over the Temple of Heaven complex. I feel like we walked the entire 273 hectares.

The haze in the background of this photo is not fog or mist of even low cloud...it's pollution. There was no wind today so the world was full of it. It leaves a film on your tongue and goop on your nostril hairs.

PS: Thank you for all your kind remarks yesterday. I'll try and comment back but it kind of depends on the flaky signal!