Our Lovely Last Day In China! Today was our last full day in China, we fly home tomorrow morning. We have a 5 am car to the airport--so it will be a VERY long day for these two travelers. We had a wonderful day today, with a long drive out of Beijing to the old village of Chaundixia. Our driver and guide Joe picked us up at 9 am for the long drive through the pretty countryside west of Beijing. Joe pointed out many interesting sights along the way. ...

The good news--David woke up this morning feeling much better! The bad news: I woke up with a sore throat and I'm coming down with a cold--crap! I think we've just worn ourselves out, but what a trip it has been! We managed to get a fairly early start this morning, we ate a quick breakfast here at the hotel, and walked through the park to the subway for our ride to the Panjiayuan Market. The subway was really crowded this morning, and we had 3 line ch...

Friday in Beijing--and we had a "do-nothing" kind of day. David has picked up a "tummy bug", and has not felt very well for the past 2 days. Today I started him on some Cipro, so hopefully he will be much better soon. We have some fun things scheduled for our last two days in Beijing! We had a quick breakfast at the hotel this morning, David just ate dry toast, so you know he's not feeling well. We did go out for a while, cruised up and down Wangfujing Stree...

A very lazy start to our day today--we relaxed, ate a late breakfast and left the hotel at almost 11 a.m. All that climbing and walking yesterday must have worn us out! Our plan for the day was to take the subway over to Beijing Olympic Park to see the Bird's Nest Stadium & Water Cube. I think the Bird's Nest is a beautifully designed masterpiece of architecture--so to see it in person was a treat for me. We walked around the Park, almost all the way ar...

Great Wall What a wonderful day we had today! Unlike yesterday's visit to The Forbidden City, this was one of those Travelin' Lundburys "BEST Travel Days Ever!" We had arranged for a local guide, Joe Qiao, to take us to the the Great Wall and the Summer Palace today. He picked us up at our hotel right at 8 a.m. for the 1 1/2 hour drive to the Great Wall at Mutianyu. It was a nice drive out of the very smoggy city into the countryside, and Joe pointed out s...