Long, long day . . .

Phew. I don't know how far we walked today, but I know how much further I could have gone. We are going to sleep well tonight! I woke up about 5:30 this morning to find the smog from yesterday blown away by the hurricane force winds that blew all day today. It was kind of a toss up on which one was better, the wind or the smog. Anyway, with the smog gone I was able to see the "view of the Forbidden City" from our room a little better. As I'm sure you guessed, our first post was just some buildings that looked kind of neat, the actual view of the Forbidden City from our room is below. The big green ugly looking building is actually a netting they have around one of the main buildings that is currently under construction to spruce it up for the 2008 Olympics. The next picture is the South Gate to the Forbidden City, it is the one that the important people (also known as the Y-Chromosone Crowd) used to enter the city. The women used the north gate, which is not nearly as cool.

Next is a picture from the inside of the Forbidden City. This place was huge. Several of the main buildings were under construction, but there was plenty to see.

After the Forbidden City we went to Tiennamen Square (or however you spell it). This picture is a large memorial in the center of the square.

Followed by Tiennamen Tower which bears the huge picture of Chairman Mao and is the place where he announced the creation of the People's Republic of China. (I think, I was not paying real close attention to our guide.)

Next was a trip to the Summer Palace which is where the emperors lived during the summer. The first picture is of the Ling Mong tower (not really, I have no idea what it is called, it just looked cool).

Next is the temple that is part of the Summer Palace. I do know that it is a Temple, I do not know what it is called.

Well, that was it for today. Tomorrow we are off to the Great Wall. More Walking. Great.

We are having a great time and really enjoy our guide Charlotte and our travel group. We do a tour of the old neighborhoods of Beijing called the Hutong's on Monday and leave for Guangzhou on Monday night. We will get Natalee on Tuesday afternoon.

We still can't read or view the blog, but I think we can post to it just fine. If not, I guess no one is reading this anyway, so never mind.