Friday night, after work, all of us who traveled (including one from Shanghai) went to 后海 for dinner. 4 (who are leaving tomorrow) went bar hopping afterwards. I was by then too tired, so packed into a taxi with the other three back to the hotel.11/23, Saturday. I joined a group of ~100 people to 天漠, a natural sand dune north of Beijing.
(￥106) Well organized. A printout of the route was distributed, and money was collected on the bus. 
The guide talked about her other trips better than most advertisements. The gathering site was about 15 minute walk from my hotel. The drive was almost 2 hours. On the way, we passed by the Great Wall 八达岭长城. The dune was managed by Beijing Film factory. The local villagers clean and collect entrance fee. Funny to see dune this close to a big reservoir 宫厅水库. 
Lots of movie props. The historic attraction is the badly eroded ancient 燕长城 Great Wall (predates Qing). Now just a dirt mount. But you can see them rising on the mountain ridge. 
Lunch is in 柳沟, a 40 minutes drive. This small town built restaurants and lodges amidst corn fields, caters to Beijing crowd. Only ￥26 (included in the package), we ate over a dozen hot dishes and some cold ones. Many made by tofu. A little meat and fish. Soy milk is fresh and hot. The problem is way too many people coming at the same time. The poor servers had trouble parry incessant demanding hands. There're always unsatisfied customers. After the lunch, we continued east to village of 永定 with some 2-300 year old houses lining the only street, a pagoda, and a Catholic cathedral completely out of place.11/24. Sunday. Walked to the Lama Temple.
雍和宫 ¥25. YongHeGong Lama Temple is the biggest Tibetan lamasery in China outside of Tibet. Buit in 1694 for Prince Yong before he came to the throne as Emperor YongZhen 雍正. 
In 1744, it was changed into a Tibetan lama temple. Symmetric layout. Signed in 4 languages: Manchu, Han, Tibetan and Mongolian.
The 3 major treasures are: an 18 meter tall Maitreya Buddha 弥勒佛 (8m extra below ground) carved out of a single white sandalwood 白檀 (a Guinness record, a 3 level home was built to shelter it); the Niche of Buddha made of phoebe nanmu 金丝楠木 with 3 layers of filigree; the 500-Arhat-Mountain made of red sandalwood 紫檀. I like one large painting made entirely of colored sand.
国子监 Guozijian & 文庙 Confucius Temple ¥30. Same entrance. Free frequent guided tour in Chinese. Nice brochure in both English and Chinese. 8:30 - 17:00. 
Confucius Temple, built in 1306, has many old trees, statues to honor Confucius, monuments to commemorate the works done to restore/renovate the temple. You can buy small wishing plaques to tie next to the statues for good luck in academia. Next door is the imperial academy, where, since 元 Yuan dynasty, imperial exams (every 3 years) were taken. Built in 1308. The lecture hall is quite impressive: no vertical beam in the large hall offers unobstructed view of the emperor who sits in the middle. According to our guide, it was designed by 和绅，the biggest corrupted official of his era. The hall sits in the middle of a square lot surrounded by a circular moat with white alabaster bridges, so called 方圆. 
Here, you can find some famous names, on 198 stone tablets, among over 50000 进士 (passed the exam) carved names.Before going back to the hotel, I walked further to Nanluogu Alley 南锣鼓巷. Bustling with lunch crowd. Small eateries, mostly snacks. Very crowded and noisy. I didn't like it. Hopped on a bus back to hotel, picked up my luggage, and headed over to the south train station 北京南站, so I can reconvene with the other 3 in the factories tomorrow. ￥2 unlimited change. My route is about 1 hour, using 3 subway lines. Line 4 exits right inside the train station. Very convenient. The ride to Suzhou is about 5.5 hours, and ￥523. This is one of the many high speed trains, runs up to ~300km/s. My line has 7-8 stops, so not too fast.
