the great wall of china--with my own eyes!

Beijing!

The city that I've crossed off my "Things-To-See-Before-I-Die-But-Probably-Won't" List! The day after Christmas, we climbed onto an airplane and flew a couple hours north to visit Beijing. HUGE city with lots of people. I felt so safe in our taxi, even though he was a speed demon. There was a couple times that I noticed the speedometer got in between the 120-125 kilometers per hour markings....gulp! It was fun, but squished. Poor Aimee! She was in between Ryan and I in the backseat, good thing we all love each other. Right, Aim?

We drove for another hour or so toward the mountains and then out of no where you see something that your eyes don't even believe. You see something ancient. Something that resembles

The Great Wall of China!

I didn't even realize that tears were streaming down my cheeks as we rounded the bend and appears this amazing landmark.
Cool facts about it:
-stretches over approx. 4,000 miles across mountains, deserts, and plateaus.
-the workforce that built it was mainly from three groups: soldiers, common people and criminals. Thousands of people died during and after construction.
-took decades to build. After the emergence of unified China in the Qin Dynasty (221-206 B.C.) the wall was a collective entity; but around 1700 years later it was enhanced and enlarged.
-it safeguarded trade routes such as the Silk Road.

The stretch of wall that we visited was Badaling and took a sky gondola. Oh gulp. My stomach was in my throat the entire ride up and down. I HATE heights!


We were attacked by vendors that wanted to sell you Great Wall stuff. There was a particularly persist ant older Chinese dude that kept bugging us to buy stuff. We kept saying, "Mayo Chen!" (no money) and "No!" and "Get Away!!" and kept avoiding him. Well, WE WOMEN kept saying that. Ryan, being the very polite and kind person he is, kept smiling and saying, "No, but thank you anyway." and he wouldn't try to run away like we were. This old guy wanted to sell a hat really badly. At one point, I saw out of the corner of my eye that this old guy had physically REMOVED Ryan's beanie that he had on his head and plopped this Russian-looking Chinese Star hat on his head! It was then the old guy exclaimed in broken english and as raspy as you can imagine, "You are beautiful!" Just the way he said it threw us into complete hysterics. Mom HAD to buy the hat for Ryan and he was a good sport, he wore it through his objections. I think it actually looked good on him. Lucky Chinese Star indeed!

Then we found the entrance! And onto the Great Wall we stepped!!

You can even see the old barracks where the troops were stationed on various parts of the wall.

I love this picture of Ryan. He's looking into the vast space of China and he's thinking something very smart and very profound, I'm sure of it.

We got lucky with the weather. We heard it was going to be very cold, with the wind blowing and with it being December. The sun was shining most of the time and the smog lifted. We were able to see the different levels of the mountains silhouetted against the sky. The wall goes on forever and disappears in the distance.

(Can you tell that I'm sleep-deprived, partying too hard and way too jet lagged to look normal?)

Mom and Aimee were peeeeeking!
Peekaboo! Kinda.




Ya, Aimee! Commit no nuisance!

My gorgeous mother that speaks mandarin and can lead us all by herself in Beijing!

I loved sharing this awesome experience with the ones I love!