Is it possible to see all the sights of Beijing in one day?

Well no, not really. But we tried to see a couple of the big ones. We left the hotel early and hired a driver to take us to the Great Wall. On a Saturday morning, leaving Beijing, we thought the traffic would be light, but it was as jammed as the BQE during rush hour. Aside from the traffic, it was a rather industrial drive out of the city. And then all of the sudden, almost out of nowhere, there were mountains and The Great Wall. Along with throngs of other tourists, very few of them Westerners, we walked, well actually, climbed the steep steps. The weather here has been hazy and overcast and HUMID! Even through the haze though, and the sweat pouring off us, we were able to enjoy the spectacular site of the wall and the scenery below.

You can tell that the second picture was before we started our major climbing because my hair is still down. The first shot is one of us on the way down. I'm still trying to figure out how to navigate posting pictures here.

After we returned from the Great Wall (which, was just about an hour's drive), we regrouped, toweled down, and walked to the Forbidden City. From our hotel,it is about a 30 minute walk. Beijing, from what we've seen, is an incredibly crowded city - The streets are quite wide and there are no curbs so it doesn't feel congested like New York City does. But there are people everywhere - pedestrians, bicyclists, buses and cars move chaotically together, seemingly without incident, which is shocking given the sheer volume of people here.

The Forbidden City was much larger than I imagined - building following building, palace following palace. Again, a major tourist attraction with few Westerners visiting. We have a ton of pictures, but just posted the two above. I liked the sign in picture of me kneeling down. It refers to not touching the old relic. No, not me, but the ancient piece of bronze sculpture I was standing in front of.

On the way back to the hotel, we walked through the City and came upon an open air market with lots of local delicacies. I've also posted a picture of one of those. I haven't figured out yet how to post the pictures along with the text, so the first pic you see is of yummy bugs.

For those of you posting comments, we still haven't been able to read the blog on the web, so we haven't seen any comments. Hopefully the next hotel will have a less fussy internet system.

It's after dinner now, and we're packing up to fly out to Nanjing tomorrow. Hoping that the next post will include the new addition to our family!