Our very first stop was lunch, followed by this little shopping area which had lots of antiques and art work.  My parents picked up a painting while I was talking with our Korean guide to get things figured out.

This is the centre building of the Temple of Heaven.  This is where the emperor did most of his praying, although there was a lot of ceremonies up to this point with walk ways and the such,

The stairs leading up the central building.  No idea who the people are.

This is the main path from the gates to the centre building.  There is a raised section down the middle and the emperor would walk on one side while his wife would walk on the other with guards lining the sides.

One of the gates along the walk way.  You can see the raised centre part of the path in the bottom, centre of the frame.

There was a garden area, as there is in all palaces in Asia it seems.  The hole in the wall was to picturesque to pass up.

A view back over all many of the gates and buildings we walked through from the centre of the temple.

A view of downtown Beijing.  Building in China were huge, it was quite intimidating really.  And I don't mean tall, but wide...buildings were often the size entire blocks...and big blocks at that.  The first day, I spent the entire time drive around just staring at the gigantic buildings all around me.

The acrobatics show, as I mentioned above.  It was phenomenal.

We are now at the tomb of  the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty.  This was one of the buildings at the front, not the actual tomb itself.  It was helpful that all of the signs were in Chinese and English, so were able to get along okay.

This is the main building of the tomb.  The tomb was actually I giant hill behind this building which was erected over the grave of the emperor.

My parents on the Great Wall.  We took a cable car up to this part of the wall, which was on one of the numerous mountain peaks it crosses.

I walked a little ways off of the beaten path, away from the crowds and happily got a fairly clear picture of the wall as it stretches on forever.

The compete opposite...nothin' but people, people and more people.  My parents are in this picture if you look, right at the bottom of the steps on the left.

Me sitting on the side of the Great Wall.  We tried a number of other pictures with us and the Great Wall but whoever took the pictures got us in frame but nothing else, so that's a bit disappointing...but Paul took this one...and it works fine for me.

This was the dam for the gorge.  It was a really deep gorge even mostly flooded...I can't imagine it with no water in it.  The dragon stretching up the right side, is actually a series of elevators that take up to the top of the dam to where the boats are waiting.  The easiest climbing I've done.

On the dam, there was a gondola ride as you can see that went up to the top of the cliffs as well as the boats...but we only took the boat trip.

My parents on the boat trip.  Being on a boat we were somewhat limited at the distance we could get...but a good picture me thinks.

A gazebo sighted off the port side captain.  Yar, shoot it ya scallywag.  With the camera that is, yar!

This was our Beijing, Chinese guide.  I liked him although he had the most annoying voice over the bus speaks.  He looks tired and cold.