Sightseeing Day

Today we had a full day of touring. We started off at Tian'an men Square and walked to the Forbidden City. The architecture was amazing with tiny details on everything. Next we went to lunch at a big resturant that also houses a Cloissonne factory. We took a short tour of the factory and were shown the 7 very intricate steps taken to make each piece of art. Then we went to the resturant. The food was delicious. We are with a group of 10 families and we all shared 3 big round tables. The dishes were on a big lazy susan in the center of each table. After lunch we boarded our bus and headed to the Great Wall. It was a beautiful clear blue sky day, which our guide, Grace said is very unusual for Beijiing. Forrest and I made our way up the STEEP steps of the wall. I was able to make it up to the first level, just barely, and Forrest went quite a bit higher. He was one of the few in our group that went that high. It was an amazing experience. After the wall, we were back on the bus for about an hour, we drove past the Birds Nest and the Water Cube, both drawing a big post olympics crowd. Our day ended with a trip to McDonalds that was just a little different from home. :) Tracy