China in Pictures

We had 4 days of site-seeing before the race. All of the tours we organized by the Marathon and groups were divided by hotels. It was a great way to meet tons of people from around the world and get to know them throughout the week. Our group had people from Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia as well as Americans living in the US and abroad (Singapore, Guam, Okinawa, and South Korea). Below is a somewhat chronological order of the pictures. We really enjoyed Beijing a lot more than we thought we would. Yes it as crowded and smoggy but getting to experience such historic things was pretty cool. Most of the buildings and structures we visited are over 600 years old and were unseen by anyone but emperors, etc for 500 of those years!

Just a horse and wagon in the middle of Beijing...

A coco-cola and corn will make this boy happy!

Now that's a happy face.
And he shared!

We found a fruit stand. Yummy!

Tian'an men Square

THE FORBIDDEN CITY (PALACE MUSEUM)

We are overlooking The Forbidden City from Coal Hill. You can't tell how big it is because of the smog but The Forbidden City is HUGE. It took us 2 hours to walk through.

Silk Factory. We made it home with 2 pillows and they are AWESOME!

Peking Duck for lunch! We were hesitant at first but it was probably the best meal all week! Definitely a must try. In the picture, the chef is slicing the duck. Each duck gets sliced into 120 pieces!

Temple of Heaven
In the Chinese culture, heaven is round and blue. All the buildings in Temple of Heave have blue roofs.

Can't go to China without trying the tea!

The Great Wall

Ying and Yang Square at the Great Wall

Cloisonne' Factory

We made it home with some really cool ornaments for our Christmas tree!

Sacred Way

Unique architecture

We would love to visit another part of China and make the Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an apart of that trip. We have a long list of places we want to go so we'll have to see if we'll make it back to China. I am so glad we were able to make this trip. The Wall alone would have made the trip worth it but seeing all of the other historical places was a great bonus!