Download brochure.

Fly from Springfield (SGF) to Los Angeles (LAX)

Check in at LAX by 1:40 a.m. for an early morning flight to Beijing. The adventure begins as we fly trans-Pacific aboard a wide cabin jetliner and cross the International Dateline.

Arrive in Beijing, the capital of China, at 6:30 a.m. The tour guide will meet us at the airport and take us to the hotel. After check-in, we’ll venture to Tiananmen Square, the largest square in the world, and the Temple of Heaven, built in 1420 A.D., where emperors prayed to the heaven for a good harvest.

Sightseeing on this day includes the Forbidden City, which houses the Palace Museum. The Forbidden City served as China’s imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It was under construction from 1406 to 1420 and the complex consists of 980 buildings with 8,707 rooms. The days highlights will include the Summer Palace, Kunming Lake, Longevity Hill, Seventeen Arch Bridge and the Marble Boat.

We’ll enjoy a tour bus excursion to the Great Wall of China. The Great Wall is more than 2,000 years old and stretches for more than 4,000 miles. It was originally built to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire against intrusions by nomadic groups. After visiting the Great Wall, we’ll continue on to the Ming Dynasty Tombs. One of the 13 tombs is fully excavated and open for exploration.

Our adventure continues as we take an Air China flight to Shanghai. A tour bus will take us to Suzhou where we will spend the afternoon sightseeing the centuries-old Lingering Garden, Tiger Hill and Hanshan Temple. Then we will visit the National Embroidery Institute to see silk embroidery, an important local craft that has a thousand-year history. Evening plans include a dinner show with traditional Chinese music.

Today’s sightseeing highlights begin with a tour bus journey to Hangzhou where we will visit the Economic Development Zone. Next, the tour continues to the ancient Lingyin Temple, which is believed to be the oldest Buddhist temple in the city. The temple features a 64-foot tall Buddha carved from camphor wood.

We will experience a peaceful boat cruise on West Lake, which will include a relaxing stopover at a jewel-like pagoda and tea house. In the afternoon, a tour bus will shuttle us back to Shanghai.

Sightseeing will include the Yu Garden, which is considered to be one of the most lavish Chinese gardens in the region. The garden is a maze of pavilions, ponds, decorative rocks and trees. Our day’s itinerary also includes a trip to the Bund, a famous tourist destination lined with historic buildings and wharves. We conclude
the day’s events with a business visit to the Pudong Economic Development Zone.

We have reached the end of the adventure and you may spend your final hours in China on your own in the morning. Our journey ends with an afternoon flight to Beijing and then we depart on an evening flight for Los Angeles, arriving at LAX in the afternoon of the same day.