Beijing - Great Wall

Driving from Forbidden City toward lunch and Great Wall, we passed this structure, named Dragon's Head, one of five buildings built to resemble a dragon for the 2008 Olympics.

Jade boat, carved from a single piece of jade

yours for only $61,000.

Shell of complex started as a Disney like park

ran out of money to build on unrealistic projections of amount of business that would be generated - too far from much of anything else.

Station on our climb of the Great Wall

for those who are often interested in where they are

One of the youngsters climbing with us (23 yo)

Two guys who had cycled to the Great Wall from Beijing

55 km to the east

Not making it to the top due to time constraints

we got this far

Surrounding scenes taken with telephoto

Climbing down

Interesting signs

Fine time to be questioning one's sanity

Parting shot at dusk

The cube from the 2008 Olympics

opening ceremonies inside

Bird's Nest and Cube

The Bird's Nest

Not quick enough - bus got in the way

Street scenes near Olympic site

Thus ended our tour of Beijing sites.  That evening we went out with a couple from California we had met that morning.  They would be adopting their child the next day.  Of the group of six, two boys and four girls would soon make America home ranging in age from 10 months to Jiejun at 12 years, 3 months.

We went to a place called Dough something, which was a noodle place inside a mall having a face lift about two blocks from our hotel.  We could not speak Chinese nor they English, other than Jiejun talking a mile a minute to them, so we ended up pointing at pictures and hoping for the best.

I selected something that looked like meat, noodles and rice and some sort of green stuff.  Excellent choice - chicken on rice with noodles and some sort of green stuff that appeared to be something like spinach, just different but good.  There was also a small dish of pickled something that was quite tasty along with a cola drink.  Tian and Jiejun got something similar best I could tell, with the three of us eating for about $7.