Thoughts.com Blogs - Day 4

View Blog

Day 4 - 8/14

Today my day began at 6am. I woke up, got ready and made some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for my day on the Great Wall. We didn't end up leaving the hostel until about 7am on a little bus that, luckily, was air conditioned.

After a 2.5 hour drive where we nearly died at least 20 times, we arrived at a mountain where we still couldn't see the wall. We were a little confused then told that we could either pay for a cable car to take us up the mountain in 8 minutes or we could hike up the mountain which would take about 45 minutes. Most of us opted for the cable car, which ended up being the best decision of my trip, more on that later.

The cable car took us up the mountain but we still had to hike to the actually wall for about 15 minutes. Finally, we're on top of the all and just amazed by all of the incredible views. First, I haven't been used to seeing so much green in China and the incredibly fresh air. It was amazing and awe inspiring. I began and ended the hike with 2 other people around my age. One was a 25 year old guy named Nicholas from Argentina and the second was a 24 year old girl named Catherine from England.

The beginning of the hike was incredibly difficult with extremely steep steps which were about 5 inches out so I had to climb them on my toes or turn my feet sideways for me feet to actually fit. Needless to say it was tough at the beginning of the hike but it was all very much worth it.

At the end of the trip, there was a zip line that went across the river below that took you to the other side of the river and closer to the parking lot where we were to meet our driver. Of course I took it. Nicholas and Catherine were both too afraid to take it so Nicholas took pictures for me of me on it, which are on the blog. The only dangerous part of this was the fact it was storming when I did it. There was thunder and lightning every 25-30 seconds and it was raining. Luckily, it didn't start raining hard until I had landed and unhooked the harness.

Overall we covered a little over 8 kilometers and climbed 32 towers win about 4 hours. The part we hiked was Jinshanling to Samatai. One of the most amazing and exciting experiences in my life.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and sleeping. I woke up to watch USA vs Greece in basketball but because it's the USA basketball team, they weren't showing it on the tv. So a couple of us went out to the bar street to find an American bar with a satellite to watch the game. Unfortunately, we evidently went to the wrong bar street and never came across an American bar so I didn't get to watch America redeem themselves against Greece.

This was strange to me because Kobe Bryant is actually more popular than Yao Ming in China. I just don't understand things sometimes. The only unfortunate part of the day was the fact that I didn't go to bed until 3am because a bunch of us got in to discussions about everything from God, economics, politics and of course the war in the Middle East. It lasted until 3am because we had people from all over the world involved and it was interesting to hear points of views from Germans, Dutch, Australians, Chinese, Canadians and French.

This was an exhausting day that I am now paying for but completely worth it.

Posted by ndwalke on 2008-08-15 21:56:55 | Rating: