Thanks for the suggestions. Yes, my plan was to land at the airport in the evening, relax at the hotel, have dinner (duck, no doubt!) and then get up early for shopping (there are a couple shops/markets we are familiar with from previous visits and just want to pop in for a few items) and see the Great Wall before our flight out to Chengdu.

But I thought our flights in and out were at 6 pm, but now I see that they are at 4 pm. That would seem to be a logistical problem. I don't think we can both shop and see the GW in one day and then make it to the airport for a 4 pm flight.

So, thinking on my feet here, it would seem that a better plan would be to go straight from the airport to the Great Wall after we land at 4 pm. But are ANY of the sections open to visitors in the evening in summer? I don't recall them having late hours.

Alternatively, we could try shopping after we land and seeing the Wall the next day, but I suspect that by the time we got to our hotel, checked in, and then made it to the store it would be AT LEAST 6 pm. I know some tourist markets are open until 9, but I suspect the shops we'd want to visit would close by 7. So that would make the evening Wall visit preferable, and then we could have a "relaxing" day for shopping before flying out.

The lesson of this story: you need more than 1 day in Beijing to do anything.