Althogh many friends have promised to visit any day now for sure definitely really, my main man Zoltan was one of the few who have actually done it thus far. He showed up for some 10 days, and we set out to explore as much of the the city and culture as we could both handle.

The weather started out a little on the rough side - a couple of days of the usual Beijing haze and smog, but things got better quickly, and remained glorious for most of his visit here.

We walked around Tian'an'men, Qianmen, visited the Forbidden City and Jingshan just north of it, and then also walked throgh some temples such as the Lama temple (yonghegong) and the newly re-opened Confucian Temple just up the road.