Ya know, after the first night I thought I had beaten jet lag entirely. Turns out that I was wrong. I was doing some work for CQU (Chongqing University) on my laptop last night around 6 or 7 and the next thing I knew, I woke up and it was 4 in the morning and I was wide awake. I must've passed out because my laptop was still on my stomach and I was still wearing my jeans. Weird night. I had to be up at 6 anyways so I just stayed awake and chatted with people from back home. The timing worked out pretty well since my sister was just getting out of school and I was able to talk to her on the phone for awhile. Tonight I'm forcing myself to stay awake until at least 10 so that I can attempt to get on the right sleeping schedule. After today's events, I'm not sure if I'll make it or not.
We started this beautiful day out by heading to the Forbidden City. I could tell you all about the different dynasties that lived there and blah blah blah but do you really care? Basically, all you need to know is that it contains the Imperial Palace and is in the center of Beijing and for almost 500 years it used to be the home of whoever was the emperor at the time. Now, when I say palace you should really think, "large gated city for the emperor and his concubines" because it is HUGE. There are literally 9,999 rooms in it. The Chinese have a thing with 9's. Something about 9 meaning power and greatness. So anyways, our time at the Forbidden City was very frigid. Desiree had icicles on her eyelashes at one point. It's a different kind of cold in China than it is back home. I'm not sure how to explain it, but the cold here really hits your core. The weather has made for an interesting time as tourists, but I'm not complaining.
We started this beautiful day out by heading to the Forbidden City. I could tell you all about the different dynasties that lived there and blah blah blah but do you really care? Basically, all you need to know is that it contains the Imperial Palace and is in the center of Beijing and for almost 500 years it used to be the home of whoever was the emperor at the time. Now, when I say palace you should really think, "large gated city for the emperor and his concubines" because it is HUGE. There are literally 9,999 rooms in it. The Chinese have a thing with 9's. Something about 9 meaning power and greatness. So anyways, our time at the Forbidden City was very frigid. Desiree had icicles on her eyelashes at one point. It's a different kind of cold in China than it is back home. I'm not sure how to explain it, but the cold here really hits your core. The weather has made for an interesting time as tourists, but I'm not complaining.
The entire city is surrounded by this super cool moat so you have to take one of 5 bridges to enter. The center bridge is for only the emperors and the next outer bridges are for high ranking generals and then the outside ones are for the lowly people. I tried to show them my VIP Emperor ID but the soldier who was guarding the bridges didn't understand so I had to settle with crossing the lowly people bridge.
Okay, so this made me laugh pretty hard. These 2 trees are in the Imperial Garden and it is said that if you stand in front of the intertwining "Loyal Love Trees" you will find a boyfriend or husband soon. Our tour guide made me stand in front of it so that I can find a hot, rich Chinese husband while I'm in town. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. I'll get on that.
After the Forbidden City, our tour guide took us to another bizarre yet fascinating place. I'm going to say it was more strange than the pearl place. We went to a silk factory. Once again, I'm not complaining because I learned a lot and it was super interesting but I mean, a silk factory? Okay yeah China is sort of known for having cool silks so we saw how they grew the worms and harvested the raw silk and it was just the strangest thing. I was pretty mind blown. Then we were pressured into buying fancy silk clothes and bedspreads and whatnot. The day that I spend over $600 on a shirt will be the same day my Dad has a heart attack. I should have immediately told them that there was no way I'd ever buy that stuff but it was just so warm inside and I didn't want to go back into the cold since I was just out there for 2 hours learning about emperors and their mistresses. So after I got the feeling back in my toes I awkwardly and respectfully declined their forceful offers. It was uncomfortable for all parties involved.
After the silk adventures, we went to lunch and it was actually in the back half of a jade jewelry store. I'm not sure where our tour guide finds these places but I had a great time. I of course made myself try everything that was on the table. Such. A. Challenge. I'm telling you what, half of the meat is unidentifiable and even if you ask the servers what you're eating, they have zero clue what you're saying. I really need to work on my Mandarin. The soup was the best part, I think it had some Chinese vegetable equivalent to cabbage in it. I can't believe I'm saying these words. I ate cabbage? Or something that resembles it? What? I'm just expanding my diet ohhhh so much. I haven't seen any scorpions or frogs yet, we're good so far.
Here comes the big shebang. What I know I've been waiting for since I found out I was coming to China. THE GREAT WALL. China's most famous landmark. But oh snap was it nothing like I expected. I'm not sure where I got the impression that the Great Wall of China was mostly flat with slight inclines that you could easily walk on with the the whole fam. I was even thinking Grandma and Grandpa could come along for some nice relaxing sightseeing on the Great Wall. WRONG. Dead wrong.
This is me at the bottom of the wall. So clueless, so unsuspecting. I was completely unaware of what was ahead of me.
This is Desiree and I 30 minutes later, clinging to the railings, praying that by some miracle we make it to the top of this wall. The entire thing is stairs. Not just any stairs though. Uneven, slippery, steep stairs. No picture I show could do it justice. One step would be 2 inches tall and the next one would be 2 feet tall. I realize the Great Wall was built way back, but dang. That being said, it is one of the world's most amazing landmarks and I'm still so baffled as to how they managed to built it back then. Seriously so phenomenal.
Throughout the entire time I've been here, a lot of people have stared at us. I know we're clearly Americans so I guess that's why, but today at the Forbidden City, one mom shoved her little boy towards me and then proceeded to take a million pictures of us together. Weird. Later at the Great Wall we actually had a line of people waiting to take their picture with us. Literally 6 or 7 people, cameras in hand waiting for their turn to get a picture. So we made sure we got a picture too. Also, the Chinese duck face? I guess that's cool. | Obviously we're not going to go to the top of the Great Wall of China and not get a UC picture.... |
I can't believe I actually made it to the very top. Honestly, I was pretty proud of us. There were hundreds of people on the lower portions of the wall but we only saw about 10 or 15 coming down from the very top the entire time we made our way up there. I mean, I don't think I'll have the chance to climb the Great Wall of China again any time soon so you better believe I'm making it to the very top. When I finally reached the last step I think I heard the Rocky Theme Song playing in the distance. I might've been hallucinating.
The views were absolutely breathtaking. Well, it was a combination of the views and the thousands of stairs I just climbed that took my breath away. I told Brandon and Desiree that my mom would kill me if she knew that I didn't bring my inhaler to this. Sorry, Mom. Like I said, I was expecting a relaxing stroll down the Great Wall, not the world's most challenging stairmaster workout. I may or may not have taken multiple Great Wall selfies (because when you're on the Great Wall, it is a requirement that you take at least 1 selfie) but I can't actually get myself to put them up for public viewing. I just can't do it. The way back down was pretty tricky as well, especially since my legs were Jell-O at this point. All you could really do is cling to the railings and hop down the giant 2 foot stairs hoping that you don't land on a patch of snow or ice. My face was so red by the time we were done and my shirt was drenched in sweat. But it was one of the most fulfilling things I've ever done. I still cant believe I actually was on the Great Wall of China. I still can't believe I'm even in China!!! AH, it's so surreal.
This is the man, the myth, the legend. Our tour guide Tommy (American name). He was a blast! It was funny because he did everything with us and went into all of the places but then we got to the Great Wall and he refused to even consider going on it. What a wimp. No, I'm just kidding. He really was awesome though, I think I heard him laugh at least 500 times over the past 2 days.
We have another day and a half in Beijing and we're on our own. I'm not sure how it's going to go, hopefully you all will hear from me again and we don't go missing in China. That would be pretty sad. I'll let you all know how the adventures of the 3 clueless college kids in downtown Beijing goes sometime tomorrow. For now, I need to go soak in an ice bath.
Catch ya on the flipside.
Catch ya on the flipside.