shutter hang up

Shutter Hangs Up

---

August 30th 2007
With our late arrival our local guide has put us on even more compressed schedule. Today, we are visiting the Tiananmen Square, Emperor Palace, Summer Palace, and the Great Wall. Tiananmen Square is just as I remembered it to be except it was filled with vendors selling counterfeit Beijing 2008 Olympic caps. As we enter the Emperor Palace, I was pleasantly surprised how beautiful all the buildings ... read more

Asia » China » Beijing » Forbidden City

---

For centuries China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. A... ... read more