I was lucky enough to get a business trip to China. The plane fare was way too high for Bob to come along (over $2000) but I had a good time even without him. Only one other guy from the US came along, we wanted to bring more folks out but it was just too expensive for the company to pay for. I lucked out and got to go.

Quick summary - Biejing is smoggy and crowded, growing at a tremendous pace. High opportunity level, huge pride in the 2008 Summer Olympics coming here. Very friendly people, everyone on the street is very nice. Driving is insane - do not try to rent a car here - all the drivers consider lanes and turn signals to be optional. Cars merging into the same lane will come within inches of each other, playing chicken until one gives up and yields. Interestingly, in an entire week we only saw one very minor fender-bender accident. The city is beautiful with tons of ancient buildings and well-preserved and well-restored artifacts. Good road infrastructure for owning a car or taking taxi's, so-so for buses, little in the way of subway or trains. In general well worth a visit, I'd come back if I could. If I came back I'd want to spend more than a week and go see some other places around Beijing too.

Trip report: We hopped the airport shuttle at 7am Sunday morning for an 11:30 flight to SanFran, short layover then a direct flight to Beijing (just under 12 hours in the air). Arrived 6pm Monday Beijing time, managed to stay up until 10pm which for me is critical to avoid jet lag.

Next day we had free to recover from jet lag (10 hours time change but neither of us had much in the way of jet lag) and Qi, our local host who took WONDERFUL care of us, provided us with a car and driver so we didn't have to deal with taxis, since neither of us spoke a word of Chinese. It was looking overcast and gloomy so we postponed the Great Wall trip till later and went to Temple of Heaven (sure enough, got rained on) and then went to the Forbidden City. Gorgeous! Qi joined us for a great dinner. I slept well after all the walking. Then we worked for a couple days.

We had one more day off on Saturday before going home, and Qi took us and her whole team to Great Wall for fun and team-building. The Great Wall is stunningly impressive. We then had an authentic chinese lunch complete with chicken feet and fish head soup :-) Earlier in the week Qi had asked us what foods we didn't want, and those were the 2 things I mentioned as being too weird or gross. Grace didn't know that and ordered them as typical Chinese cuisine. Everyone had a good laugh at me getting grossed out by the fish head, tho I did finally try the soup and it was pretty good. I just can't take eyes looking at me from my food :-)

We then headed to Summer Palace where a few more folks on Qi's team who couldn't make the morning Great Wall hike joined us for the afternoon. Gorgeous park-like area and a beautiful blue-sky day. This kind of blue sky in Beijing is supposedly pretty rare (happens a couple times a month). Man I'm spoiled from Colorado - sunny 300+ days per year here!

Sunday we had the morning free before having to leave town so Qi again gave us the same car and driver to take us around Tienenman Square, and take a pedi-cab ride around the houtongs. Way cool. Then Sunday afternoon catch a flight out, arriving Colorado Sunday evening.

Thanks Qi!

	Our first sight-seeing stop was to a large park-like area with many buildings, called Temple of Heaven. This is the main temple building. We actually got to this later in the tour.	The audio guide to Temple of Heaven. Pretty cool with GPS technology to know where you are, and play the appropriate info message automatically for where you are, so you can traverse the area in any order. Also shows you where you've been and won't replay an info message. Downside - sometimes I missed part of an info message and _wanted_ to be able to replay it.	This sidewalk had people practicing playing these instruments, didn't catch the name for them.	They played it like a recorder, covering and un-covering holes in the pipe	Lots of gorgeous buildings, trees, grass...

		We never did figure out what this building was, but it is pretty.		These guys were playing a game with small racquets and a hackey-sack type ball	But when catching and throwing the ball, they would roll it across the racquet to gently catch and throw. The guy in the forefront holds a second ball, you can see the ribbons coming off it to slow down the ball in flight.

	Explanation of the Seven Star Stones.	The 7 Star Stones. Interestingly, the audio guide called these the "Big Dipper Stones".	Description of the Long Corridor. It was closed for renovation.	Now we go inside another set of walls to get to the interior section, containing the main Temple or "Hall of Prayer". It's huge and gorgeous.	Close-up

	All around the main hall are other buildings, just as beautiful but long and rectangular.	This one is smaller and is the "Imperial Hall of Heaven".	Description of "Imperial Hall of Heaven".	Inside the building	Seventy-Year door and amusing description

	Description of the carvings on the stairs up to the Hall of Prayer	Standing at the bottom of the stairs up to Hall of Prayer	The carvings are in beautiful shape, given how old they are and they are out exposed to the elements	Around the hall where there are platforms instead of stairs are drain spouts for rainwater, beautifully carved like dragsons and such. Most are badly detiorated but here's one that's intact.	Sorry I cut off part of this description :-(

	Description of the Burning Stoves	Burning Stoves	I wuz here!	Description of the Shed of Sactifice	Description of one of the annex buildings.

	East Annex Hall. This one was open, with a mini-museum inside.	Section cut-away model of the central round buidling, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests	More good info	Back outside the area surrounding the Hall of Prayer, to the rest of the Temple of Heaven area.	Description of the Danbi Bridge, which is really a raised walkway, not a bridge.

	Danbi Bridge / walkway	Description of the Echo Wall. We didn't try the echo part.	Description of East Annex Hall	East Annex Hall	Inside the annex hall, notice the tablets.

	Description of the Imperial Vault of Heaven.	Inside ceiling of the Vault of Heaven. My bad, didn't get a picture of the outside.	Inside of Vault of Heaven	Outer wall of Vault of Heaven, similar drain spouts, these are mostly in good shape	close-up

	Description of West Annex Hall	West annex hall. On the left you can see someone leaning over the railing to try out the Echo Wall.	Inside west annex. Similar tablets to East Annex but the tablets are different colors.	Description of Heavenly Center Stone	Going up to the Heavenly Center Stone

	Everyone wanted the picture taken on the stone	What must have been a moat around the Hall of Prayer and Vault of Heaven	Now just grass, but the bridges are beautiful	Here it started to rain harder so we beat feet back to the driver and lunch.	Bad photo cuz it's raining but the left U-turn arrow was cool, haven't ever seen that in the US.

	After lunch, still drizzling, heading to the Forbidden City.	This is where the Emperor used to live. The common people were not allowed in, hence the name Forbidden City.	Just across the square, lots of tourist stuff for sale	Imposing buildings! We're heading in...	Just inside the wall, a terrace, and 5 bridges across a small river.

	The main building in the middle (on the left) is being renovated.	Close-up of the main building, the terraces, stairs, and gargoyles are just beautiful.	Looking back at the entrance. The top part is a museum.	We climb up to the top part of the entrance building, where they're showing drawings from Belgium. Looking out towards the bridges and middle building.	The left side of the open area, the bridges are all off-screen to the right. The left buildings is where we go to next, every one is a mini-museum with lots of cool relics.

	Pretty cool staircase! The relics are pretty neat too	Musical Instruments	Description of ancient calculator - 1600's!	Bad photo of the calculator	Gorgeous! This is a "Tripod Painted-enamel Incense Burner"

	Unfortunately after this the rooms had "no cameras" signs.	Lots of renovation going on, we're guessing in preparation for the expected influx of tourists for the August 2008 Olympics here in Beijing.	Didn't figure out what the building in the center is, but it's pretty :-) To the right is the building just inside the entrance under reconstruction. To the left is the Hall of Preserved Harmony.	Inside this pretty building.	Description of Hall of Preserved Harmony

	Inside the Hall of Preserved Harmony	Better view from the center.	On the other side of Hall of Preserved Harmony, looking right	looking center	looking left. The Forbidden City is just huge!

	Moving forward and looking back up at the backside of the Hall of Preserved Harmony, the stairs have another carving. Not as big as at the Temple of Heaven, but the biggest in the Forbidden City.	Description of the carving.			Moving on, the next building had these lions guarding the entrance.

	This place just goes on and on!	Huge ?cauldrons?, similar to the Burning Stoves at the Temple of Heaven.	Sun dial!	Gorgeous statues

	Description of the Palace of Heavenly Purity	Inside the Palace of Heavenly Purity	Good reflection of me :-)	The top edges of the roof line had way cool little statues. All the buildings have these.	Another sundial. Now the sun is just barely out so you can see the shadow at about 8 o'clock.

	Another beautiful carving leading up to the next building. This one leads into the Imperial Gardens.	In the middle are 2 trees, grafted together. Great symbolism!		Description of the Imperial Garden.	the grafted trees

	Beautiful rocks, looks volcanic		Even the paths have beautiful mosaics. Everyone just walks on them.		Ceiling of one of the little gazebo-style buildings inside the garden

	The wood is so shiny it looks like petrified wood.	Outside the exit to the forbidden city	Up above the exit	Changing of the guard	Further outside the Forbidden City, looking back at it.

	We came out the wrong exit and had to hike down the street a ways to get back to our driver. We finally got to the right spot and are heading back to the hotel.	This is one of the more narrow streets in Beijing, most are 3 lanes each way. This street goes around the Forbidden City. Notice lots of bicycles.	A more typical street in Beijing - 4 lanes wide plus bicycles.	Lots of modern sky-scrapers.	Pretty "rainbow bridge"

	Tons of construction going on	More sky scrapers. It's now clear skies and no clouds - the grey haze is all smog :-(	Way cool buildings!	Tons more cranes for construction	These 2 buildings are truly leaning, and yes they will be occupied when construction is done.

	Typical apartment buildings. You can see the dots of air conditioners on the luckier dwellers.	Lots of modern buildings	Qi took us to a restaurant for Peking duck, a specialty of Beijing.	Which given Peking is another spelling and pronunciation of Beijing, makes sense :-)	Here the ducks are mostly cooked, waiting to be seared in the back fireplace to roast the skin to perfection

	A chef brings out our duck, here's the remnants after it's sliced. The skin is the most flavorful part.	Next day, heading to work, more gorgeous buildings	And more apartment buildings.	We're staying at the Great Wall Sheraton. I'd highly recommend it. Anywhere that provides robes in your room is pretty cushy! No, I didn't steal one :-)	Next day heading to work. There are trains here but not many. Buses are the norm.

	Cute sign - no littering.	Office park with lots of high-tech companies.	hurrah!	Pretty building	with a small garden and fountains

	Me and Keith	Next day, back at the hotel, looking out my hotel window. Pretty garden down on the first floor, and city as far as the eye can see.	Looking further left out my hotel window. This is sunshine - there are zero clouds, just smog.	Next day, done with work and heading to Great Wall to sight-see. Roadside stand along the way.	Entrance to this section of the Great Wall.

	There be mountains here!	From the parking lot, looking north-east. In the center you can see the wall on top of the hill!	zoomed in	We didn't go to the typical tourist section of the wall closest to Beijing (Ba???), Qi took us to Mutianyu which is further away but much less crowded and less touristy.	Still, pretty touristy. Food on the right

	and souvenirs everywhere!	Camel heading up to give rides to the tourists	Marker stone for this section of the Great Wall	Sorry blurry, cool bug on Grace's wrist	Toboggan - an alpine slide - how we get back down

	We go up in a chair lift	and get to see the slide	and people coming down as we go up	Some unique features of this section of the Great Wall	Looking left (west). We will go that way along the wall. Notice the cable car lift part-way.

	Looking back down over the chair lift to the valley below	Pretty!	Ming, Qi, Grace	and me!	Keith, Qi and me. Great backdrop!

	LuoQi inside one of the tower buildings as we start to hike along the wall	Short climb up to the next building. This one has a ladder up to the top (notice the person on top)	Looking out of the building to the next section of wall	Follow the wall to where there's a sharp left and a silver platform, that's the cable car that goes up. We're going way past that.	inside one of the buildings

	On the inside of the wall, steps leading down to the ground, for soldiers to get in and out, haul supplies up to the towers, etc.	Qi touches the cannon. It's morning so the metal is still cool. When we return about noon, it's hot to the touch.	Another building, they used to have ladders to get up top.	Looking out to the right (north) to a spur of the wall.	From the other side

	Almost Escher-like. The wall goes up on the left, takes an unseen sharp right and goes down to the bottom right, then back up to center top.	We're still heading towards the cable car station on the left	At the cable car station, looking further on. On the right is a straight-up section, beyond which you can see green in the middle of the wall. That's where the restoration ends.	Looking back, in the middle is a red awning where we came up on the chair lift, that's the beginning of the toboggan slide going down.	Butterfly!

	Gorgeous mountains surround us. Blue sky!	LuoCao checks out the photo he just took	LuoQi makes Grace into a ghost, hiding her face	People are visible climbing the last set of steps before the end of the restored section	The long hill right to left? Yup we're going up it.

	enjoying the scenery	Looking back	about to head up. My calves were tired after this and even 2 days later they were sore.	Taking a break halfway up	The end of the road

	You can see why - pretty broken up! Makes me appreciate the restoration that's been done to the large part we already hiked!	Some tourist ignored the sign and hiked up. He was picking his way pretty slowly. Gives a good perspective on how big the rocks are and how steep that part is.	rest break!	looking down the steps back along the wall. The farthest-visible part is the cable car platform I think.	Gorgeous!

	Another section of the wall visible to the north - the square towers on the peaks are visible.	me		It's a beautiful blue sky day here, with a few scattered clouds	Heading back, better view of the cable cars. I think the chair lift was more fun :-)

	steep steps up from this corner tower up to the wall	and more steep steps	The good thing about blue sky is it's pretty and good lighting for photos. Bad thing it it's hot - very hot - like 100F. Really. Very humid too!	Ming gives perspective to the height of the walls on each side, with the arrow slits	Graffiti happens

	Another butterfly. This is remarkable because in Beijing there are no insects. None. No mosquitos, but nothing else either.	At most of the corner towers is a local selling water, food, etc. Many are in shady spots, others bring large umbrellas for shade.	Back at the bottom, the lions here are actually blow-up, not statues. I lost my hat on the toboggan ride down so had to buy another :-), less than a dollar for a hat or t-shirt.	Back in Beijing, driving by the Birds Nest Stadium - for the opening ceremonies of the summer 2008 Olympics.	huge hotels being built around it

	It's nearly complete and still a year away	From a different angle	Lots of construction of hotels and such around the stadium	Close-up of the stadium, workers are visible along the top - and this is a Saturday!	the aquatic center

	there are no beams or steel structure here, just water and translucent encasing of the water. Pretty cool!	beautiful sky scraper	Now we're at the Summer Palace.	This is in the middle of Beijing, comprising a lake and a palace to the right, and surrounding grounds	This was the relaxation area for the Emperor, the equivalent of Camp David in the US. Now open to the public as a park.

	Description of the bridge	the bridge across the lake to an island in the center	pavilion just before the bridge	on the bridge looking back at the pavilion	The carved stone lions are all unique

		Description of Wenchang Tower	the tower	weeping willow trees abound here	Lotus flowers in the water here, like lilies but taller

	the flowers are shades of pink			At the top middle of the photo is a round green thing that has indentations, kinda like a shower head. This the seed pod of the lotus flower, edible and popular.	Description of the Long corridor

	Entry to the corridor (yeah that's Keith in the middle)	Every couple feet on all sides there are beautiful paintings of scenes from China's history, fables, legends, etc.	Just outside the corridor is a stream with both low water lilies and the tall lotus plants	The paintings are spectacular

		Looking across the lake to the bridge	More paintings		Description of the area at the end of the Long Corridor

		The tower where the Empress would pray to the Budda			Interesting rocks. Each one is supposed to look like an animal from the Chinese zodiac. This is the rabbit.

		me	Looking back along the Long Corridor	The pavement here has beautiful mosaics, much like in the Imperial Gardens in the Forbidden City.

	The stone boat	Truly made of stone, just for show. Beautiful wooden staircase in the middle	Taking a break	this place is huge and the shadows are getting long (it's getting late) so time to head back	Nice cloud formation, shows the rare blue sky day we have today in Beijing

	close-up	looking back across the lake to the bridge. The clouds / smog layer is turning pink from the sunset	Interesting space-needle type building on the left	Looking back at the tower of incense (?) with the setting sun behind it	little mountains visible here

	a crowd gathers to watch this gentleman draw characters.	I can read the upside-down 2007-08-11 (today's date)	I have no clue what it says :-) but it's beautiful. [Added later: DickH says: "the characters are Dong3 Lu4 (the numbers are the tones). It's someone's name. The other writing looks to me like a treble clef in music; it certainly wasn't part of the characters. Nicely drawn." I should have added before that the vertical lines between the 2 characters were drawn last, almost as a flourish.	sunset	flowering bushes along the side walks

	Kites!	Was cool to see folks flying kites as we're about to leave the Summer Palace	green pea Popsicle - sounds gross but it's pretty good! More like sugar snap peas.	back on the roads, traffic cameras are everywhere	typical bus - double long

	occasionally we saw double-decker buses but usually just single-level ones	It's Sunday and we're heading to Tiananmen Square. This building is off to the side.		Tienanmen Square itself	We drove all the way around it

	It's simply huge	Large crowds of people

	Symphony building	Tons of bicycles		Rows of pedi-cabs	Just gobs of them. Rickshaws (a guy pulling a cart, walking) we didn't see anywhere. These are bicycle cabs, very popular for tourists.

	We're about to take a tour, joining a long line of pedi-cabs heading out.	Hutong is the word for the area around here of small alleys (too narrow for cars) that opens up into small lakes and rivers. Pretty much you can only get there via walking or pedi-cab.	the first lake		the alley we're in is pretty narrow, then it opens up to wide enough for a car (in the distance)

	Partway along we stopped to view an old-style Beijing Courtyard. This is 4 buildings surrounding a small shaded courtyard.	Chinese Chess	Views of the buildings back when. Notice the bottom left picture has two round knobs over the doorway. The number of knobs indicated the status of the family. If a boy of a 4-knob family wanted to marry a girl of a 2-knob, very difficult.	Inside one of the rooms of the north building. The north building was the most desirable and thus housed the parents and grandparents. The east building where the sun rose (things grow) housed the boys. The west building where the sun sets (things shrink) housed the girls. The south building was coldest in winter, hot in summer, and housed the servants.	Description of the roof tiles

	Examples of the roof tiles		showing how a large family might have 7 buildings with 2 courtyards in the old days. Now with the restrictions on children, most courtyards have multiple families per courtyard.	Three main prosperity signs of a courtyard: 1) shade from the tree and from the grape vines, for coolness in the summer	2) fish bowl. Water was considered a sign of wealth, the Chinese word for water is very similar to the word for success.

	3) pomegranates - many seeded fruit. The Chinese word for seed sounds like the word for boys and many boy children were desirable. Girl children would leave their family to go live with their husband, boy children would bring home a wife and care for their parents and grand-parents.	Supposedly a typical bedroom but the TV in the opposite corner (not visible) has me wondering.	Looking across the courtyard	Passing by a narrow alleyway	Description of the Sycee Bridge

		One of the landmarks of this area			little dog just lying in the alley, didn't move or even look as our driver pedaled by. We saw little dogs here and there, no big dogs.

	more narrow alleys		tow truck	showing where cars or trolleys can go. In the middle of the blue circle is where our pedi-cab took us.	Gate to the edge of the lake (bottom of the previous map)

	the terrace at the edge of the lake has a series of signs for public service or public info	this one is for how to perform CPR		Near a bus stop, daily newspapers are posted, encouraging everyone to read and be up to date on the news	sidewalk? we don't need to stinkin' sidewalk! The right-most lane is generally for bicycles, though the buses use it too.

	Road workers are highly visible, and everywhere tho road construction is minimal in disruption to traffic.	missed this one, wanted to get the logo "one world, one dream" on the left and the set of figures on the right representing the Olympics	Tons of construction - count the cranes!	nearing the airport	On all the expressways, the left lane has a higher speed limit than the middle and right lanes. Here, 120 kilometers per hour in the left lane, 100 in the right and middle lanes. Wish the US would do that!

	Wow big plane crossing over the freeway!	In the airport, one of the five "friendlies" of the Olympics	All sorts of Olympic souvenirs on sale here, a year early	Is there a book on Go for Bob? I have no clue :-)

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