We had a plan for jet lag

We landed in Beijing at 0500 and were met by a guide and driver, who took us through morning traffic to the Jianguo Hotel.  After settling in, we decided to hit the hotel pool to refresh ourselves with hopes of making it through the entire day awake to get on schedule.

We had an early lunch near our hotel.  We shared dumplings.

 Max had noodle soup while Nina and I shared some spicy duck.

 The food was delicious.  The duck was presented beautifully including a part you don't usually get served in the U.S. - the head.  I took a few tentative bites and ultimately Nina went to work and called out "oh, the brains are good."

From lunch, we boarded the Beijing Subway, which is a pleasure to ride.  It is clean, fast and all announcements are also made in English.  We headed in search of the Lama Temple.  After a brief detour to nearby Di Tan Park,

we found the temple, which was amazing.  It is an active Buddhist Temple and we watched as several dozen monks walked through the grounds to a main pavillion where they sat and chanted prayers beneath a huge Buddha statue.  In a neighboring pavillion, an even larger Buddha stood 55 feet high, cut from a single piece of wood.

Following the temple, we took a quick stop at KFC for Max to get some refreshing ice cream and the sheer novelty of hitting KFC in Beijing.

We returned to the hotel around 1600 with the idea of taking a nap and then heading off to the night market. Well that's where the plans went a bit awry. We awoke around midnight and then managed to sleep for another few hours.  It is 0530 Friday now and we expect to be first in line for the hotel breakfast and fortify ourselves for the Great Wall.