Beijing...we aren't in summer anymore

Upon arrival in Beijing we quickly realized that we had entered the winter portion of our journey. Time to rearrange our backpacks...putting long johns, hats and gloves on top with swimsuits and shorts at the bottom!
First on our "to-do" list was to visit The Great Wall. We opted for the portion that was about 2 hours from the city called Jinshanling to Simatai. This section of the wall is considered more remote and runs along a beautiful mountain ridge line. The 6 mile hike on the wall took us about 5 hours with many vertical ascents and descents. As expected, The Great Wall was an experience we'll never forget!


On our second day, we explored some of the sights in Beijing. We started with Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was pretty amazing to be walking around such famous/infamous grounds. With local tourism becoming more popular the last few years in China, we were joined by thousands of local Chinese people who were also visiting these sights for the first time. Do you see a line? What line?


We then jumped on the subway and headed to the Olympic grounds with the Bird's Nest and Aquatic Cube.

We must admit that we did have some help while in Beijing and it made our brief stay there a truly memorable experience. Patrick's second cousin, Nate Waechter, son of Betty, who is the daughter of Patrick's Aunt Jessie (for those of you keeping track...Jessie is the oldest of 16 children, Pat's mom is the youngest) has been living in Beijing for 2.5 years. He was nice enough to not only give us a checklist of what to see and do in Beijing and meet us for dinner, but he also hunted down the local drink of choice, rice wine a.k.a. lighter fluid. It was awful! The exact name of this stuff skips my mind but that's probably because it causes short term memory loss. Thanks Nate for the great time. Anyone looking to hire a smart and personable guy that is fluent in Chinese, he's your man!

After sleeping off the effects of the previous nights fun, we took in some more sights. The Bell and Drum tours offered some great views of the pollution, I mean city.

We also happened to come across a frozen lake where we could rent a unique mode of transportation. Lets call it a "bicycle skate"...basically a bicycle tire on back with an ice skate on front...great fun anyway you slice it!

Anyone for some sugar shaped into a dragon? Sure beats cotton candy.

Paintbrush + water + freezing temperatures = amazing sidewalk art.

Sorry, no pictures of the acrobat show. Apparently they were concerned that a rogue flash bulb might distract the guy 30 feet in the air juggling 10 balls while balancing on 5 contorted women. There was a pile of drool at our feet as we gazed in amazement with our mouths wide open for a hour and a half. One word...unbelievable!

More pictures...subway, Chinese Television building (Patrick made Claudia walk way to far for this picture), Temple of Heaven.

Our guesthouse, located in a "hutong". These old style neighborhoods are rapidly being demolished by the government for new development. A shame as these alleys offer a great feel for the Chinese culture.

No blog about China would be complete without a shot of us eating Peking Duck (our favorite Beijing food...we kept it to only 2 times as our blood may have turned to gravy) and deep fried scorpion, surprisingly not all that bad!