4-Day Classic Beijing Tour

The 4-day classic Beijing tour is designed for tourists who come to visit China for the first time. It covers the most popular and typical places in Beijing, fully displaying the scenery, culture, history, local lifestyles and features, food and drinks, business, etc. for you.

Day 1:Arrival in Beijing

Your guide meets you at Capital Airport, and helps you check in at your hotel

Enjoy Beijing Duck as welcome dinner.

Accommodation: Beijing downtown

Day 2:The Great Wall & the Summer Palace

Start your day at the most famous part of the Great Wall, the Badaling Great Wall. Leave the downtown for the Great Wall at 8 am. Since it is a long drive to the Great Wall (about 2 hours' riding) have a break at the Jade Museum on the way. Lunch will be enjoyed in a local restaurant. In the early afternoon come back to the city and have a sightseeing tour of the Summer Palace.

Recommended Activity: Beijing Opera Show (Liyuan Theatre,19:30-21:10 every evening)

Accommodation: Beijing downtown

Day 3: Beijing city sightseeing & Local experience

Your guide meets you at the hotel at 8 am and set out for the day's touring: Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City.

After visiting the two sites, have a break and get ready forlunch.

Hutong visit: see some traditional arts of the old Beijing, suchas paper cutting and kite making, and visit a local family.

Accommodation: Beijing downtown

Day 4: Beijing Olympic sites

Visit the Olympic sites: Bird's Nest, Water Cube and OlympicPark, witnessing the fast developing modern China. Enjoy some free time after visiting the sites.

After lunch, it is shopping time and then the tour is over.

    One day an ant was drinking at a small stream and fell in. She made desperate efforts to reach the side, but made no progress at all. The poor ant almost exhausted was still bravely doing her best when a dove saw her. Moved with pity, the bird threw her a blade of grass, which supported her like a raft, and thus the ant reached the bank again. While she was resting and drying herself in the grass, she heard a man come near. He was walking along barefooted with a gun in his hand. As soon as he saw the dove, he wished to kill it. He would certainly have done so, but the ant bit him in the foot just as he raised his gun to fire. He stopped to see what had bit him, and the dove immediately flew away. It was an animal much weaker and smaller than herself that had saved her life.

    Some years ago, writing in my diary used to be a usual activity. I would return from school and spend the expected half hour recording the day's events, feelings, and impressions in my little blue diary. I did not really need to express my emotions by way of words, but I gained a certain satisfaction from seeing my experiences forever recorded on paper. After all, isn't accumulating memories a way of preserving the past?

    When I was thirteen years old, I went on a long journey on foot in a great valley, well-equipped with pens, a diary, and a camera. During the trip, I was busy recording every incident, name and place I came across. I felt proud to be spending my time productively, dutifully preserving for future generations a detailed description of my travels. On my last night there, I wandered out of my tent, diary in hand. The sky was clear and lit by the glare of the moon, and the walls of the valley looked threatening behind their screen of shadows. I automatically took out my pen…

    At that point, I understood that nothing I wrote could ever match or replace the few seconds I allowed myself to experience the dramatic beauty of the valley. All I remembered of the previous few days were the dull characterizations I had set down in my diary.

    Now, I only write in my diary when I need to write down a special thought or feeling. I still love to record ideas and quotations that strike me in books, or observations that are particularly meaningful. I take pictures, but not very often—only of objects I find really beautiful. I'm no longer blindly satisfied with having something to remember when I grow old. I realize that life will simply pass me by if I stay behind the camera, busy preserving the present so as to live it in the future.

    I don't want to wake up one day and have nothing but a pile of pictures and notes. Maybe I won't have as many exact representations of people and places； maybe I'll forget certain facts, but at least the experiences will always remain inside me. I don't live to make memories—I just live, and the memories form themselves.

    As health care costs continue to rise, a growing number of companies are working out programs designed to keep their employees healthy.

    Thomas Chapple is the senior vice president. “It's really important to us because medical costs are going up like crazy,” he says. “This company spends more than $ 200 million a year on medical costs for its employees around the country. The best thing we have seen as a way to control the medical cost is individual fitness.”

    “We have a fitness center,” Shawn Flaherty, director of public relations for Freddie Mac., says. “We have a health benefits plan that encourages people to work out three times a week, get cholesterol （胆固醇）checks, as well as 'do not smoke.' If they do that, it will cost them less for the health benefits.”

    Rachelle Clark works for Freddie Mac. “I feel great. You know the benefit is rewarding. I like to look good and feel healthy. I am just fortunate that I work for the company that provides some type of facility for the employees.”

    While on-site fitness centers are popular, some companies pay membership fees at local gyms for employees. The companies also offer classes such as boxing, yoga and dancing. Employees see those health programs as a valuable benefit.

    Tom Brook exercises five days a week. As a newspaper reporter he has a tight schedule, although Tom says it's not that difficult for him to make time for a workout. “It is great. It is right here where we work,” says Tom. “So everybody gets a chance to use it whenever they want to. I have lost weight and never been in better shape.”

    The programs may not be a magic cure for rising health costs, but they seem to have a positive impact on both employers and employees.

    I always wondered how people would react if I tried to approach a total stranger for help in a busy place like a street corner or in a noisy mall. I have always hurried past a stranger who tried to catch my attention in a busy place or when I am rushing around.

    Yesterday, I was in a busy shopping mall buying a large piece of luggage because I just had the time to do it after many days of planning. After the purchase in one of the large shops, I picked up my phone from my pocket to call my driver waiting in the parking lot but my phone was dead.

    I then requested the shop assistant who had just sold me the luggage to ring the number of my driver for me and she replied that it was the shop policy that they cannot use mobile phones while working in the shop.

    I got out of the shop onto the busy street in front and approached a young mother with her two kids to make a request. As soon as I said “Excuse me, madam”, she grabbed both her kids and ran. I felt like a kidnapper.

    I stood there, wondering how many times I had reacted to strangers like the young mum. I stood there in the busy street with people rushing by, looking at their faces to see if there was a sign of kindness on their faces.

    I saw a man pretty shabbily dressed. He seemed to have noticed me and I just stopped him expecting him to rush past. My request escaped the lips. He immediately called the number of my driver and waited till my car came to be sure I was picked up, and he turned around before I could thank him adequately and was gone. I was surprised by his kindness and hope I will do likewise to strangers who try to catch my attention from now on.

    There are many places to go on safari (观赏野生动物) in Africa, but riding a horse through the flooded waters of Botswana's Okavango Delta must rank as one of the world's most exciting wildlife journeys.

    Several safari camps operate as the base for this adventure, providing unique rides twice a day to explore deep into the delta. The camps have excellent horses, professional guides and lots of support workers. They have a reputation for providing a great riding experience.

    The morning ride, when the guides take you to beautiful, shallow lakes full of water lilies, tends to be more active. It is unlike any other riding experience. With rainbows forming in the splashing water around you and the sound of huge drops of water bouncing off your body and face, it is truly exciting. You are very likely to come across large wild animals, too. On horseback it is possible to get quite close to elephants, giraffes and many other animals. The sense of excitement and tension levels rise suddenly though, as does your heart rate, as you move closer to them.

    In the evening, rides are usually at a more relaxed and unhurried pace, with golden light streaming across the grassy delta and the animals coming out to eat and drink. Sedate though they are, rides at this time of day are still very impressive. As the sun's rays pass through the dust kicked up by the horses, the romance of Africa comes to life.

    Back at the camp you can kick off your boots and enjoy excellent food and wine. Looking back on your day, you will find it hard to deny that a horseback safari is as close as you will ever come to answering the call of the wild.