In Beijing we were delighted to discover so near our hotel a busy little maze of streets that we could explore. Street vendor's carts piled high with vegetables or just about anything else......bicycle repair shops, basic household items, people transporting goods in all sorts of bicycle and motorcycle drawn wagons, little lap dogs trailing after their busy owners and people taking a moment to eat breakfast out of a bowl. That's where I thought for the first time, "Wow, I'm actually in China!"

Outside Beijing we spent a wonderful day walking on the Great Wall. At first our way along the top of the ramparts was paved with stone or brick, but after a while these surfaces gave way to a dusty path and eventually became just a spill of ancient bricks crumbling into the bushes on the side of the hill. It was very quiet up there and we could look out and glimpse further segments of the wall as it rose and fell over distant hilltops and valleys as far as the eye could see.
See some of my journal pages