The best place to start exploring this huge country is the 3000-year-old capital city Beijing. Until few years ago, the number of people on bicycles far outnumbered cars on the road. This isn't true today. Althought you still see many people traveling from home to work on bikes, there are many more cars, trucks, and buses clogging the streets of downtown Beijing than ever before.

The center of this modern bustling city is Tiananmen Square, and the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square, with 98 acres, is the largest public square on the world. Many associate this place with the pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989 that ended in tragedy for many student protesters and in suppression of the survivors. Important buildings in and around the square include the Great Hall of the People, which serves as the meetinging place for the National People's Congress. This immense building contains a meeting hall of 10000 seats and banquet hall of 5000. The Monument of the People's Heroes, located inside the square, is dedicated to those who have died of the couse of national independence and freedom since 1840.

The Forbidden City, build in the fifteenth century, was the place of 24 emperors from the Ming Dynasty onward. The 250-acre palace, open to the public since 1949, contains exactly 9,999 rooms! Visitors can explore the many chambers and view more that a million relics, many of jade, bronze, gold, ad silver. Why is it called, "Forbidden"? Until the early twentieth century, the only people who were permitted to enter the Forbidden City were emperors or roylty. Common people were forbidded entry, which was punishable by death.

As a change from the high energy of the city, visitors often move on to the tranquil retreat of the nineteenth-century Summer Palace, with its shimmering lakes, located a short distance from downtown Beijing. Visitors can explore the Summer Palace, which was the principal rest and recreation area of the Dowager Empress of China during the latter part of the nineteenth century.

A popular one day excursion from Beijing is the trio ti The Ming Tombs and The Great Wall The Ming Tombs are the ornate and well-preserved burial places of the most of the Ming Dynasty emperors. Two of the 13 tombs that have been excavated are open to visitors. The trip to The Ming Tombs itself is exciting as visitors travel along the Sacred Way, stopping to photograph the stone animals that guard the route that was once forbidden to everyone except the emperor's funeral processions. There are many elaborate gardens outside, with distant hilltop pagodas providing a picture-poscard backdrop.

Approximately two hours by car or motor coach is Chinas most famous attraction, The Great Wall. This gigantic wall served as a defense throughout much of China's turbulent history. Separate walls were built in the seventh century B.C. by small warring states throughout China. In 214 B.C., the different sections of the wall were linked to prevent the invading Mongols from coming to the south. The construction of the wall continued for many centuries, and it went through major repairs and extensions up to and including the time of the famous Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

The wall extends more than 4000 miles through grasslands, over mountains, and across immense deserts. The section of The Great Wall in Badaling, located about 45 miles north of the Beijing, is considered the most representative section and is the part by the greatest number of tourists. Build some 2300 years ago, The Great Wall is China's most famous atraction and one of the few landmarks on Earch clearly recognizable to our astronauts far in space!