Endless Summer Tiny World

Today Chelsy and I went to the great wall of china! It is so cool and so amazing, and huge!!! We went to the wall at mutianyu, it was cool cause it had restored parts and unrestored sections. It was about an hour hike up to the wall so Chelsy and I decided to take the cable car up and spend more time on the wall. Climbing the wall really is a climb and a ton of work! It is on top of a ridge of a mountain and it goes up and down the mountain ridges. This section of the wall also had 23 towers, I think we made it to 16 of them! The old section was very cool as well but definitely overgrown and falling down. We then took a “toboggan” down to the parking lot. It was real similar to a luge! So fun! At the bottom we did a little bargaining for some souvenirs and then we headed for lunch that was included with our tour. It was really good! A traditional Chinese meal with lots of tasty choices. Overall a great day and the 2,000 year old wall really was amazing! After snowboarding, walking yesterday, stairclimbing today and waking up super early due to jetlag Chelsy and I are very worn out and sore by the end of the day. I can’t wait to adjust to this time!

It has been difficult dealing with getting travel as lots of trains and buses are booked, and things are filling up fast with chinese new year coming, but we finally got a train ticket today after a lot of work and were headed to pingyao by bus on Sunday.

Quotes of today:
Chelsy: I’m too fat for these little Chinese rides (cause her toboggan wasn’t working very well)

Chelsy: I hate your mom for getting you that video camera!!! (cause I keep taking crazy video, especially of Chelsy going slowly down the slide!)

So we made it to Beijing!! Finally!! We had a 15 hour flight to shanghai, and then 2 hours to Beijing. We got in and the airlines left chelsy’s bag in shanghai (don’t worry she has it back now!) we hopped on a bus stopping near where we needed to but didn’t know where that stop was and no one on that bus spoke English! The buses were packed and just as I had been told the Chinese people are not very good at forming lines, instead it’s just a pushing and shoving match to get on the bus. We finally got our bus driver to figure out where we were going and tell us when to get off the bus. This was at about 1:30 am, as our plan didn’t even land til almost midnight. We got dropped off but in the dark, in a strange area, being unable to read signs much made following our directions a challenge so we just got a cab for the last 10 minutes to our hostel.
Our hostel is really nice and the staff is great! This morning we got up early, because the time change is messing with our sleep schedule, and we did some odds and ends before heading out to the forbidden city.
We saw tiananmen square, walked to the top of the gate, and then into the city. The forbidden city is huge!!! But so cool. All the buildings are just amazing to look at. The roofs are great and all the details in these buildings is amazing. It would take forever to see everything, so Chelsy and I only lasted half the day, but I thought that was a pretty good amount if time! We then hiked up the hill across the street, the hill is made from the dirt they dug out of the moat around the forbidden city, and we enjoyed the view for awhile before moving on. We then went to the lama temple, a Buddhist temple, where everyone was burning incense and we saw an eighty foot high statue of buddha that is carved from one piece of sandalwood!
On the way home we stopped and had our first real Chinese meal…. It was sooo spicy and Chelsy and I both decided our chopsticks skills have got to improve or were gonna lose lots of weight! But maybe that’s a good thing…..
Oh and I forgot…there is no Facebook in china! I know I’m shocked too, how can a country this big not have Facebook?? But I guess that means you’re all gonna have to keep up with me either through email or right here!
Tomorrow’s plan is the great wall!! I’m so excited!

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