Brothers in Beijing

My youngest brother Tim completed his year abroad at Waseda University in Tokyo at the end of July and since Scott and I were here in Beijing, we thought it would be a great opportunity for him to visit us before flying back to the States mid-August. To accompany him, my other brother Russell also flew over a
nd we played host to them for the past two weeks. I finally got to see some of the sites I've been holding off on seeing until someone visited and we'll be ready with recommended itineraries for the next group to arrive. As of now, our next guest will be my mom during the beginning of October.

Just some general tips for anyone coming to visit -
TRANSPORTATION: The bus and subway system is pretty good for getting around at less than 50 cents per ride and even if you wanted to splurge on getting a taxi, you won't pay more than $6 to get from one corner of the city to another unless there's heavy traffic. Even a taxi ride to the airport is only $14.
FOOD: If you thought McDonald's was cheap in the States, it's even cheaper here in Beijing. Yes, I'll admit we ate the occasional western style fast-food but for the most part, food is cheap. Most of our meals came to maybe $5/person with the exception of Todai ($35/person) which I highly recommend going to because it's so much nicer than the ones I've been to in the US. A nice duck dinner can even come in less than that at $25/person.
SITES: The two weeks my brothers were here were more than enough time to see the sites of Beijing. Had the weather been cooler (and we had gotten up earlier), I think we could've easily completed everything in one week. On the top of their list was the Great Wall and we had a great tour with the China Cultural Center that took us to the Mutianyu portion of the wall. On the flip side, we also had a bad tour experience with ineedhotel.com (booked through sinohotel.com). This company didn't deliver what they promised and their people were uninformed and late. CCC is more on the expensive side but based on the two tours we went on, they're worth the value.

In summary, it's possible to only spend $30/day/person for food, transportation, and sightseeing. Add more for the shopping (I recently got my own Coach purse and "Faux"lex watch) and if our place isn't available for some reason, I think you can find hotels for less than $100/night.

My brothers are better at posting pictures online so I'll add a link to their pictures when it becomes available.