The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China is one of those places you see in pictures your entire life, but never really even dream about making it there.  That was me at one time, and not that I have been there I still really cannot comprehend it.  Yesterday I climbed the wall for 3 hours, about 5 km of hiking up and down the stairs.  Never before have my knees hurt so bad!  Every single step was worth it though!  Spending time on the wall is one of my favorite activities on the trip so far.  The part of the wall we went to is apparently one of the least traveled ones when it comes to tourism.  I can understand why, the condition of the stairways and paths make it almost impossible to travel safely.  Multiple times I was climbing up and down steep staircases where the steps were in shambles with no railing to keep me from plummeting over the edge.  It sounds scary, but it makes for a great adventure!  I took plenty of pictures but I am a little sad about it because a picture will never do The Great Wall of China justice.

Exhausted, we all slept on the drive back to the city.  We had one last family diner on a lazy Susan, which I am not mad about.  I have been in Asia for a bit longer that my taste right now.  I am over hole-in-the-ground toilets; eating rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; and shoving my way through everyday activities.  Enough of that, now back to our last family dinner.  Lin, a graduate landscape architecture student on the trip, had her family join us for the day.  Lin’s family lives only a few hours outside of Beijing.  For dinner they brought us three rounds of drinks, which is a traditional Chinese practice for serving guests.  The first round was apple juice, or what they referred to as apple vinegar.  The apple vinegar is a business Lin’s father and uncle started up several years ago.  Lin told us the apple vinegar is the most expensive kind in China, probably because it is so tasty!  After the apple juice they served us wine, and then a Chinese liquor, fire-water.  Thanks to Lin’s parents, my last meal in China was one of my favorite.

This morning I woke up late and did not have time to eat breakfast.  I just knew that this would be an indication of how the rest of my day would go.  I went to the post office with a large group to ship another box of souvenirs home.  It took a solid two hours just to put my stuff in a box and fill out a packing slip.  It was the most hectic experience I have had in a while.  Because it took so long at the post office, we somehow ended up running through the streets of Beijing in order to get back to the hotel in time to leave.  We made it back 10 minutes before the bus left at 11:00 a.m.  Naturally I did not have time to get lunch!  We stopped at the Beijing Olympic Park for about 15 minutes on the way to the airport.  I had just enough time to take a few smoggy photos of the place and reflect on the fact that history was made at the exact place I was standing.  The Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube were really the only things I could see, but I am still glad we were able to stop.

And now I am sitting on a plane.  I have been for the past 3 hours, and I will be for about 6 more.  I really, really need to get some homework and studio done, but so far all I have accomplished is two movies, a trip to the bathroom, and this journal entry.  I think it might be hopeless at this point.  I need to find some inspiration for studio, and I need to find it quick!