Beijing, China- April 29 to May 2nd

These were our overnight bunks down to Beijing. These were the nice ones!! There were four to a room. I knew three of the four. At one of the stops during the middle of the night, some random guy came into our room and took the vacant bunk - weird!!

Scorpion on  a stick anyone!!

These are some kind of fried birds - you can find anything you could ever possibly want to eat in Beijing!

This was a building that had had a tremendous fire. Rather than tear the building down and start over, they elected to gut the entire building and then rebuild it with the original infrastructure.

The water cube - famous during Beijing Olympics, where Michael Phelps became famous.

The Bird's nest - site of opening ceremony for Beijing Olympics

We went to see a Cirque De Soleil type event and saw some incredible Chinese acrobats!

These people did some amazing stunts, without any ropes. Quite impressive.

Peking Duck anyone??

The Guardians of the Summer Palace. One is the female and the other is a male. Can you tell?

The small boat we took while at the Summer Palace

These intricately painted beams tell stories of Ancient China. They run the length of the walkway.

Me with some beautiful Chinese blossoms.

The Marble boat - made entirely out of marble. It floats!

Me w/ Pete's Dragon The boat driver got mad at us because we were holding up traffic.

So our tour guides were "incentivized" to take us to these tourist trap destinations. This one was like "Pearl City". They opened up a oyster and sure enough found some small pearls.

As you can see, a serious, but, typical Beijing traffic jam. Basically, all those cars in front of us had to back up so we could get out. It was impressive!

Serious freeway traffic

The Great Wall of China from a distance. Spectacular.

Sea of humanity climbing the great wall of China

Now these are some serious stairs. Some are taller or shorter than others, so you have to watch your every step. Think stair climber on steroids!!

From the very top of my vantage point. Looking at other parts of the wall.

The Jade Palace

Talk about random. We are in a Beijing super mall with all of these small vendors, when Jim Fowler comes over to me and says you have to come see this. Mind you we are in Red Communist China where Christianity is not readily accepted. We get to this one store and they've got snow globes, but, not any snow globes, snow globes of LDS temples. In China of all places!!

Hot Pots in Beijing!! You dip your meat and veggies in boiling water and enjoy! They had a mean peanut sauce that was delicious!!

The Golden Horses outside our Hotel in Beijing. It was a nice hotel!