Long weekend in Beijing...

Just a quick update, as we are back at that hostel with one computer and people waiting to use it....
I can't believe we have only four full days left of our trip. It is hard to wrap my brain around that for sure. I will have to do some more blogs when we get back to the states to fill you in on what we plan to do in the next four days. We are going to the Summer Palace, the Forbidden City, Mao's museum, and of course The Great Wall. SO that is a lot to pack in, eh?
We just got back from Ping Yao, an ancient walled city that can only be described as whimsical. The entire town consists of small, one-story grey building with pagoda-style roofs. The streets are punctuated with beautiful red lanterns that when lit up at night made me feel like I was in some kind of Chinese fairy tale!
We only spent two nights there, but it was a great stop off the beaten path. There was not a whole lot to do but wander around and check out some of the small museums commemorating the beginning of banking- the concept of the "check" was invented in Ping Yao. I know, not too fascinating, so we hit a few of those and then opted to just wander the streets and admire the beauty of the place.
So, that is all for now. We fly back Monday, and after a 13 hour flight from Beijing to NYC, we land the same hour we leave! (13 hour time difference). Isn't that crazy? I am sure we will be quite jet-lagged, but luckily we will have the comfort of Matt's sister's and husband's home to get ourselves back together before heading off to Ohio to watch Matt's other sister graduate from college! Yahoo!
I will update the blog as much as I can here, but probably will have to wait until we get home. Also, at some point I will post a slide show of pictures from my own computer- if I can figure out how to do that! :)
Stay tuned!