Beijing

We had a wonderful time in Beijing even if we did all get sick. We stayed in a nice hotel within walking distance to the Forbidden city and Tian'an men. Also, Wang Fu Jing Da Jie (a famous Beijing shopping street) was just around the corner.

First stop, a morning walk to the Forbidden City. It was COLD!!!!

There are walls inside walls inside walls. To get this far we did not need to buy tickets. We had already come through big doors that lead into a big square from the street. Then from the square there is a wall and the big doors shown here that lead to another square. The part of the city that the emperor lived in is inside yet another wall.

Here is a picture of the next wall.. The Emperor lived in there. Tickets were required to go in there. On this day we did not go. It was very cold, Emily's feet were cold, and it was just not very enjoyable to stroll around. We went back another day and went inside. Click here to see those pictures...

To get out of the cold we decided to go look at art.
We went to the National Museum.
It had many beautiful things in it... Ah.. yeah.. right... whatever... it had heat!!
It is along one edge of Tian'an men and is right across the street from the Forbidden city.

This statue is around 2200 years old!

Ummm..

Wow...

That's pretty old.

Back outside the Museum standing on Tian'an men looking across to the Forbidden City

Shopping (site seeing) in

a Hutong near the

Forbidden City.

We had a great day of skiing. Actually we only skied for about 3 hours. Tickets could be purchased for any number of hours. They rented skis and ski clothes as well. It was all really very, ah.. normal. The ski area was nothing special. It was just one of those ski areas that is there because it is the closest mountain to the city. It had a quad chair and a double chair. There was English speaking music playing on the area speakers all day and lots of English writing around. You could almost forget that you were in China.

They had new shape skis for rent. When the guy handed me a pair of 160's I handed them back to him and asked for.. you guessed it.. a pair of vintage K2's that ran about 190 cm. I STILL don't need no stinking shape skis!!

The camera froze up in the cold and the only picture we have is this one taken just before we left. You can see the mountain in the background. The man in the picture is the worlds best driver and his mini bus. Yup.. there's tape on the front window. I assume to keep it from leaking and not to hold it on. He spoke no English so I got free Chinese lessons. We used his service to go to the Great Wall as well.

We went to a little town that happened to have the Great Wall in it's back yard. It was a farming town. They grow Hazelnuts there. There were orchards everywhere. Oh yes, and no tourists. Not a single "I climbed the Great Wall" T shirt to be seen anywhere. Kelly said that this trip to the Great Wall, in this place, was one of the high lights of her life. Wow!! I guess she was impressed.

Emily and Scott at a guard tower door. There were no Mongol horsemen around. It was safe to proceed!

See that little speck out there. That's Emily. When I say so tourists I mean nobody!! We were alone, walking on the wall for hours. It was a circle walk so we accessed the wall from one point, walked on it up and down the ridge for a few hours, then exited at another point and walked a farm road back to the town where our driver was waiting. It was really an incredible experience. Click here for more pictures of our Great Wall walk.

Kelly REALLY wanted to see the Birds Nest Stadium (being built for the 2008 Olympics) so the driver went by it on the way back from the wall. He stopped in left lane of the highway for us to get out and have a look. No problem!!