Day Two - Touring Beijing

Here are some photos of today's touring. It started out a rainy, drizzly day...not great for climbing The Great Wall, but we push through the elements and I made it half way!! Monica made it to the top. The steps are very steep and I was worried about running out of energy and strength for the trip down. I do better going up than down and my quads got quite a work out. There is a special photo of some super fantastic, change your life Wrigley's gum, compliments of one of my bosses. I promised him the gum would make it to China and The Great Wall. I'm doing my part to build bridges with our Asian friends.

Sorry, I meant to turn that top photo around. It is one of the many squatty potties we came across in our travels today. They're no big deal except when you're trying to negotiate a backpack, camera belt, etc.

After The Great Wall, we went to the Cloisonne Factory and Friendship Store (government owned store) and had Chinese food for lunch. The Cloisonne was beautiful, but we hope to make purchases in Guangzhou, as we understand the Friendship Store prices to be 10 times what they are in Guangzhou.

Next, off to The Summer Palace. Very beautiful and peaceful, but by that time, I believe everyone in the group was tired from the morning's climb. We took a dragon boat back to the bus so we could drive by the Olympic venues. The driver was able to pull over the side of the road so we could jump out for quick photos. Now that they are preparing fot the Para-Olympics, we could not go into the venues.

We leave the hotel at 8:30am for Guangzhou and should arrive about 2:30pm. That will give us time to get the feel for the layout before baby time on Monday afternoon.