Originally Posted by
moondog
While it's true that most of us here aren't eager to plug the Summer Palace as part of a "1 in day in Beijing" plan and that winter is not its best season, consider the following:
-Apples to oranges aside, SP is much nicer than the ToH
-one of the biggest drawbacks to the SP the fact that it is kind of far away, but since you happen to be staying reasonably close to it, this doesn't apply to your case
Incidentally, jiejie summed up my objection to your ToH/GW plan quite nicely (next to impossible to do with sane logistics).
Yes, maybe what you should do is skip the Temple of Heaven, and do Badaling GW and the Summer Palace, which makes more sense logistically and could fit quite nicely in a one-day plan. It sounds like the guide just doesn't want to go to the GW. Remember that the guide works for you, not the other way around, so figure out what you and coworker want and insist upon it. If you decide to do GW + SP then doing in either order is fine.