May and her driver, Mr. Yaun, picked us up at 9 AM at our hotel.  We set off through horrible traffic for the Great Wall.  I thought Saturday morning traffic would be light but apparently the May 1st holiday has already started for a lot of people.  After an hour of stop and go driving we pulled into a jade store for a quick rest stop.  Error, can Kathy make any visit to a store short?  After picking up a couple of souvenirs, we resumed the drive to the Great Wall.  The air is very hazy today so the pictures your seeing are not our normal quality.  In this section of the wall, the top is a series of steep steps with flat landings only at the watchtowers.  People can be seen trudging uphill all the way to the top watch tower.  Once here you can appreciate the effort it took to hand build 3,000 miles of wall over the mountains back in 200 BC.  The wall was updated and expanded to 4,500 miles by the Ming Dynasty in the late 1300s.  Cell phones work at this section of the great wall so we called a few friends in California who we thought would be up at noon our time.  We thought it would be fun for them to talk to someone standing on the Great Wall.  Then lunch and off to the Summer Palace.

The Summer Palace was build by Emperor Qianlong in the 15th century at Lake Kinming to copy the gardens he had seen in Southern China.  Other Qing Emperors added new buildings and embellished the gardens.  The greenery here is in stark contract to the almost barren courtyards we saw yesterday in the Forbidden City.  The Summer Palace is located just 5 km Northwest of the Forbidden City and is now surrounded by the City of Beijing.  Before 1911, commoners were not allowed access to the lake or to the Summer Palace grounds.  Sort of like having a private Lake Tahoe.

Then off to see an early show at the Beijing Theater Acrobatics World.  This is a world renowned acrobatic show that takes what you have seen in a circus to a new level.  Our still photos were not very good due to the low light level.  However the video clips give you some idea of what the show was about.  Then back to the hotel for a light dinner and to see if Jerry can get a haircut for next Tuesday.