Breezy Beijing Days 3 and 4

The Great Wall of China.  I cannot begin to describe how majestic this structure was.  It just stretches as far as the eye can see in every direction, curling over mounts and winding through the valleys.

The walk up to it was quite strenuous.  In fact, running around on the Great Wall and even just walking up its many mountainous staircases was a work out.  We ate our box lunch up there and enjoyed the view.  We took lots of pictures and had fun making echoes.

But I made sure to really take time to enjoy the view and to take in the experience.  Up until this point, the Great Wall was something I had only seen pictures of and read about, and now I've seen it with my eyes and touched it with my hands.  It really does qualify as one of the seven structural wonders of the world.  You just look at it and think “PEOPLE built this?” 

We only got to be on one small section of it, though, technically, you can walk across the whole thing if you want.  It is about the same length as the distance between the coasts of the USA.  Some SAS people slept on it the night before and there are probably some sleeping there tonight, but we didn't and are not going to.

To get down we took toboggans.  Like the alpine slides in Big Bear, its a slalom type track and you push forward on a level to accelerate and pull back to slow down.  I got it all on video, it was awesome.

Then we went down to buy the necessary and grammatically-awkward shirt “I have climbed up the Great Wall.”   This woman wanted 285 Yuan (like $45) for a regular 100% cotton shirt.  I got her down to 30 Yuan.  Not too bad, but I could have done better.

Afterward, though it was only slated on our itinerary to be a 10 minute stop to take a picture, we went to the where the Beijing 2008 Olympic games took place, formerly known as the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube.  Our tour guide rearranged the schedule for us to spend about an hour there, and me and Isaiah busted our patooties to get inside the Bird's Next even for just 20 minutes.

It was so inspiring to be where the Olympics took place.  The inside of the Bird's Nest had such an energy to it that made me want to be an Olympian.  We walked around and took pictures and sat in seats and pretended we were there watching it.

The next stop was a market, four stories, where the products get more legitimate as you go up.  The first floor was all the knockoff products you could ever want.  They even had a knock off iPhone!  This was by far the funniest thing I have ever seen.  It looked like an iPhone physically, but the resolution of the screen and the functionality of the touch stuff was crappy.  There is NO WAY anyone would ever mix it up with a real iPhone.

I bargained for Taylor and got him some lighter, and spent some time buying gifts for friends and family.  In one place I bargained with a hug, embarrassing the seller to the point where she sold me the thing for the price I wanted.

The night we went to the Hard Rock Cafe, Beijing, for dinner.  It was the most expensive meal I have ever had, but the band that played was good and the amount of bonding time we had was worth it.

Then the most hilarious thing happened.  Since we didn't want to drop another $8 on dessert, we decided to go to McDonald's to get some ice cream or milkshakes or something.  We left the Hard Rock and hailed a taxi, and the guy had no idea what we were talking about.  Taylor made the golden arches with his hands, and I drew them in Isaiah's notebook.  I also drew little cartoon french fries, soft drink, hamburger, and happy meal.  We had to take two taxis to fit all 8 of us, and as we're on the freeway we saw one and screamed and shouted and we got there.

Once we were in there, the guy didn't really speak English so we had to do the old point-and-guess menu approach.  But the funniest thing was that they were only playing one song over the speakers: Umbrella.  Over and over again.  Good thing I really like that song, because we heard it over 7 times before we left.

The last day we made a quick stop to a Tibetan Buddhist temple and the Summer Palace.   Both places were quite grandiose, and I took some fun pictures.  We took our plane ride back to Shanghai that evening.

Beijing was one of the best times I've had on this trip.  Not only did I make some great friends on the trip, but the sites we went to and the people we met will have a lasting impression on me.