The Wonders of the World
Great Wall of China – Beijing, China
Local Time: December 25, 2008 – 10:45AM
This was by far the coolest part of this trip so far… even though it was just one section of the wall – of which most has been restored, you can see the other parts of the wall in its original form far in the distance. The section that we were taken to was restored to make it safe for climbing. You can either go left or go right. If you chose to go right, the steps were much more manageable to handle. If you go left, the steps are much more difficult to climb as it is much steeper. Since I am traveling with three relatively adventurous guys, we opted to go left. The climb was much more difficult than we anticipated, but we made it up a good portion of the wall before descending. Keep in mind that the weather there was less than 30 degrees outside and there were patches of leftover snow from the prior week. The air was so cold that it pierced my lungs as I climbed higher and higher. The view was amazing and the construction of the wall was amazing.
Since it was Christmas day, there wasn’t much else going on in the surrounding areas. Usually there are floods and floods of vendors that stand about trying to sell you something – it’s their way of making a living. But this is the off-season and not as much tourism passes through. This kind of makes it nice for those who do because it’s not quite as crowded (but it was still pretty crowded that day – there were at least another 30 tour buses parked outside along with ours). After everyone climbed down the wall, we all boarded the freezing bus to go and have lunch before visiting the last spot for the Beijing leg of the tour.
