Rediscovering Beijing: Temple Fairs

Someone needs to explain to me the reason for and appeal of Temple Fairs. We decided to go to one since someone kindly gave us tickets to the one at Taoranting Park. It was easy enough to get to by subway. Then the first thing we saw on entering was the amusement park. So guess where we spent most of our time and money! But even when we coaxed the kids away all we saw was rows of food stalls, at least what we could see through the crowds. And don’t even get me started on the bathroom crowds!

There must be something we are missing. We just spent most of the time frustrating the kids because we refused to buy everything on offer. And eating some kebabs to the sounds of Gangnam Style on continuous loop. By then we were about frozen and headed out. What’s the deal?

Rediscovering Beijing: The Planetarium

Yesterday the kids were begging to go out and I was tired so I thought about where we could go that would be easy by subway. It was freezing and windy so it would also have to be indoors.

Finally settled on the planetarium just three subway stops down and across from the zoo. They'd been there when thu were three so it was almost new. We picked a film that was starting soon and ended up being in the dome. They learned about the constellations and I traveled back to my childhood when I loved visiting planetariums. They isn't even complain about not watching the 3d or 4d cartoons.

For this and entrance for me and two kids paid 115 rmb.

The museum itself didn't hold a lot of interest for my overactive 7 year olds, mainly pictures and and long explanations.

We had lunch at the museum canteen, got huge portions for 30 rmb each.