July 21-We arrived in Beijing at about 5pm and proceeded to have an imperial dinner at the Imperial Palace at Beihai Park next to the White Pagoda. It seemed like 20 courses. All of the food was good.

July 22-Jet lag caught up last night and we both were awake most of the night. Oh well, maybe tonight we can sleep. What a trip. The Great Wall is long, high and on a huge up angle to walk toward the towers. We both made it most of the way. Norm got tired and only made it 2/3 of the way to the end. We were at the Badaling fortress at Shuiguan. It seemed as though the entire population of Beijing (13 million) plus all the tourists were at the wall. Still, this was quite a day. It appears that pedestrians do not have the right of way in China. We saw more near misses than you can imagine.

Evening was interesting. Cindy was tired so Norm went to dinner with our tour guide Kevin at a local Chinese restaurant. All of the help shouts everything. It seemed like Ed Debevics. Good food and two people ate a full dinner for about $5.00.

July 23-Saturday poured all day. We still saw a lot of sights. We spent the morning at the Emperor’s summer palace. What beautiful buildings and surroundings, with the longest corridor in the world. We then had a Beijing Duck lunch and spent the afternoon at the Temple of Heaven where the Ming and Qing dynasty emperors would worship heaven and pray for bumper crops. Another really interesting set of buildings. The grounds were filled with all sorts of people singing in informal chorales with a few instruments to boot along with century old cypress trees. Came back exhausted but had a fun day.

July 24-We went to the Peoples Congress today. Then on to Tian An Men Square. No we did not wait in line 1-1/2 hours to visit the body of Chairman Mao. The Square is a very interesting place. It seems that today the entire population of Beijing followed us to the Forbidden City. This was the home of the Emperor in olden days (up until 1949 and Mao) and no commoners were allowed into the home of the almost Godlike one. Really interesting architecture. Nothing is done on a small scale. The city goes on forever. Really nice day. Strange, but Norm was hit in the head with more umbrellas today in the sunshine day than any rainy day in China. Even after all of this time, Norms chopstick ability is not getting much better.