I took this photo of detail at the Forbidden City. There were a dozen or so of these motifs across a long wall. A Chinese man stood practically in my footsteps and took the same photo of the same one...obviously thought I saw something special in this one!

These street sweepers with their hand-made brooms are seen in all public places in Beijing.

Emperor wanna-be

Sleeping quarters of the Emperor

Our tour group (20 of us) taking a rest.
Our family was one quarter of the tour. Someone nicknamed us the Gang of Five.

This plate artist painted Bob's portrait in 5 minutes and tried to sell it to him.

Two thrones actually..the child emperor (Pu Yi) sat on the first one and the Empress Dowager hid behind him and controlled the empire.

Emperor's bed

Dragon Tower on Coal Hill
All the dirt from the Forbidden City was piled here to create good feng shui (hill to the north, water to the south).

Less traditional Chinese dress!

One of many traffic incidents

The girls loved the mirror defroster in our hotel.

The prongs on my hair dryer didn't fit in the adapter so Peter spent the first night filing them down. This worked fine; however, the battery charger blew up with lots of black smoke when Peter forgot to flip the switch to 220. When we got in that night, I had a special typed message to "Mrs. Olson" instructing me as to where the hotel hair dryer was located in the room.

Bike lane

Bike repair entrepreneur working out of his cart

Bicycle racing stadium built for national games...to be used for the Olympics