Claudette and Ron started their Alexander Roberts tour of China in Beijing. We got there a day before the official tour started, so we spent the first day touring a few places that were not on the official tour. First stop was at the Temple of Heaven. We not too quickly found that getting a cab was nearly impossible unless you are standing in front of a major hotel.
The Temple of Heaven had a lot of temples but it is mostly used for groups of locals to exercise or sing. A bit like Central Park in NYC. The pandas could not take the heat at the Beijing Zoo, they mostly hid way in the back. The Llama Temple has the tallest Buddha in the world. They did not allow pictures when inside any of the temples.
Tianenmen Square is all about visiting the Mao mausoleum. But the line was too long to do that. The Forbidden City is a short walk from Tianenmen Square. The heat plus the smog made it a very trying day. The tour guide took us to a section of the Great Wall that was difficult to walk up. Its fairly narrow and the tourists stopped a lot for pictures and you had to get around them.