The Great Wall of China
One week ago, we went to the Great Wall of China. As you can imagine, it was breathtaking! The neat part about it is that we were still in Beijing even after travelling 2.5 hours by bus. So the cool thing about where we went is the lack of tourists. Since the highway we traveled on has only been open for 2 years, the location that used to take over 6 hours to get to has not yet gained as much popularity.
So we spent the day hiking for about 5 hours on the wall. As exhausted as we were, that was not even the steepest parts. My words won’t do justice for this experience. I suggest that you ask the BRIC students individually how they felt about this experience and have them show you their pictures.
Anyways, we finally made it back to the parking lot just in time to take a caravan to the local village where we spent the night on cement beds with ricebag-like pillows being. Each bed held 4-7 people. OK, this might have not been the hotels that we have become accustomed too, but what an experience it was driving up to this village right next to the wall in a lightning storm, eating home cooked authentic Chinese food, and sharing a no-flush squat toilet.
Being woken up by Roosters at 4am the next morning did have its benefit though…getting to sit outside to watch the sun rise over the wall over clear skies and crisp air.
We then had an authentic breakfast followed by a 1.5 hour walk down the dirt road back to the bus. Overall, this was a memorable experience for all of us!
ps…I wish I could share pictures with you all, but all of my photo sizes are too large and word press is refusing to upload them. I guess that just means more excitement to see what we have been up too when we all regain access to Facebook in 2.5 weeks!
Post by: Philippe Topdjian