South East Watchtower, Temple of Heaven

the National Art Museum

Monday 18th July

We started off the day with a visit to the National Art Museum, which was close to our hotel. This has a good range, with some contemporary art as well as the classical material, and we spent over an hour and a half there and could have spent longer.

After that we caught a taxi to the South East Corner Watchtower. This is now a contemporary art gallery; it also offers great views of the surrounding city. Next to it is the Ming City Wall Park, with sections of the old walls.

We tried to catch the metro to the Temple of Heaven but I'd got confused and the line that goes there hadn't opened yet, so we we ended up taking a taxi. The Temple of Heaven is actually a huge park, with small forests and scattered pavilions and buildings.

the Temple of Heaven

Temple of Heaven bird feeder

One highlight was the Music Administration building, which had displays of old instruments and information about scales.

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