The start of the trip, on the train to the airport

An exciting welcome for our airplane, which was the first direct flight from Beijing to Boston.

The birds' nest, the olympic stadium

The white pagoda at Beihai park

A fun patch of bamboo

A classic little building

Awesome double roof

There are a number of these covered walkways with beautifully painted beams

I don't think they had shortest path in mind when they designed this bridge

A very peaceful spot in the park

Down by the lake

A pretty serious roof!

The cathedral sticks out like a sore thumb

Doing some shopping in Beijing

A beautifully decorated little shop

Is this what gentrification looked like in old China?

Super-China shops

I'm guessing this says something like "The place to be"

Ummm sure?

More fancy shops

Erke. I'm sure they weren't thinking about Nike at all when they came up with it.

An impressive gate in this shopping area

The Transformers 4 (I think?) was coming out later that summer, of which about 30 seconds take place in Beijing, so naturally there were promotional materials all over the place.

Some really nice decorative... wheels?

I just love these painted beams, which are all over the place in Beijing

A classic bicycle rickshaw. If only they had those in New York...

A pretty fancy gate

Another fancy gate

Jingshan park, across the street from the forbidden city

The forbidden city, on the one clear day that we had in Beijing

Beijing, old and new

The white pagoda

An iconic building in Beijing

Remnants of the olympic games

A panda at the zoo. Awww!

Ghost monkeys at the zoo. Eesh!

They both had the same pose for the camera

A collection of Native Americans. Wait, in the Beijing Zoo? That's rude...

Don't forget: Flushing timely you are the best...

A delicious dinner, as they almost all were