Day 1: Beijing

We had a busy day. Jet lag got Charlie up early and he headed out for a walk around town at about 5am. Breakfast was at 6:30am and then the two of us walked around for about an hour before the tour started. It is so much fun to walk around the town. Very few of the dogs are on leashes and there are hundreds of bicycles on every street. We ran into a local market, which is always an education, and then saw a mini-parade going down the street. It was nice and cool even; it is always nice to not be sweaty before the day even starts!

Veronica had us on the bus at 8:30am and we headed to Tiananmen's Square and the Forbidden City. Then it started to rain...buckets! There were hundreds of street vendors that really wanted us to buy an umbrella. We did not and just hung in the rain for the next few hours. It really was a wonderful tour that walked us several miles from Tiananmen's Square to the South Entrance of the Forbidden City all the way through to the North Exit of the Forbidden City. Amazing...Charlie and I really wanted to go to the Chinese National Museum, but there wasn't time. Next trip! Let me reiterate at this point...we were soaking wet (if we get any pictures posted, you'll see what I mean!).

Once we made it back to the bus we headed to the Cloisonne factory where we had a wonderful lunch. Then it was onto the Great Wall of China - the Badaling entrance. The rain stopped, but it stayed very cool. That really helped everyone, as it was much steeper than anyone had anticipated! I went up to the first castle with Charlie, which was just about as far as most of the folks went. Charlie and our new friends Alex and his son, David, headed up to the next castle and ended up going all the way to number six! Their heads were in the clouds by then...I call them castles, but they were really guard towers (the kids all called them castles and it stuck!). It truly is a wonder of the world. Everyone was in awe.

We headed back to the hotel at 4pm, exhausted and still wet. Veronica went over the process for Gotcha Day tomorrow and we received our travel approval sheet with Mak's photo on it. Right before we got back to the Poly Plaza hotel, we passed by the Bird's Nest and other Olympic sites. Amazing!

Our orders are to have our luggage ready for the bell boy at 4:30am, breakfast is at 5:20am, and we leave for the Beijing airport at 5:50am. I've got to get packing...good night! Tomorrow is a big day.