Hey Cousin Orville,
When we did China in 2011, we arrived a day early, but mostly wandered around near the hotel, went to the night market, got dinner and crashed. The next day, day one of ABD, we hired a private guide from the China Guide. Did it on line and I think we paid with a credit card in advance. I don't really remember. A lovely young woman picked us up at the Peninsula Hotel with a driver. We went to the Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, lunch (included and they wanted us to order a lot of food), a tea house for a tea ceremony and the toy market and pearl market. These are the places we picked. You can choose whatever places you'd like to see. We made it back to the hotel in time for our ABD dinner. All the places we saw were really great. I'm glad we did the tea ceremony. ABD had one at dinner that night, but we had a full tour, it was a bit loud in the restaurant and you really didn't get the whole thing there. Some families did a tea ceremony in Xian. You eat lunch in a tea house right on the property where the terra cotta warriors are. So that is an option too.