We stayed at an amazing Airbnb. A reminder that hidden gems are everywhere

The mailboxes

Looking down one hallway

Looking down another hallway

Once we got to the top floor, this was a look down the inner column of the building.

Looking directly across the inner column

Looking out the window of the apartment

a sneaky pic of another apartment

A large section of Beijing rides bikes.

The first full day there, we went to the Mutianyu section of the great wall. Instead of walking the whole way up the mountain, we opted for the chairlift up!

Looking out from the chair. You can see the wall, other chair lifts, and a slide to come back down!

A look at the wall, once we got up there and started hiking around.

Back in Beijing, we were wandering around and found a library vending machine!

a closer look at the books you can check out

We saw some very unhappy fish being delivered to a restaurant.

Wandering around more, we found students excercising

people preparing dumplings for lunch

We found an awesome beer bar (Great Leap Brewing) and might have stopped in three times

While wondering, we found a small temple with lots of animal carvings.

We also found a group of students touring the temple

Huge cloth scrolls.

Visitors would attach blessing tablets to the wall during the new year.

a close-up of the detail from the blessing tablet

We went to Tienanmen and the Forbidden City

Some students also went there.

And some guards

Back to the Wall we went. This time to the Shuichangcheng section.

This section was forbidden to visitors…

…or so we thought, until we spotted two people on the section

A big look at some restored parts of the Wall, as well as some original parts

Puppies don’t get nearly as tired hiking the wall!

I would highly recommend this section. Because it’s bit harder to get to, it’s much less crowded.

This section of the Wall is partially under water and falling apart after a dam was built for a reservoir.

A very calm man on a very hectic bus.

On our last morning in Beijing, before heading to the airport, we took a walk and found a lady making dumplings.

yum!