China: Day Four

Updated: Oct 10, 2020

TODAY is the day that I conquered one of the Seven Wonders of the World!

On July 26, 2019, I climbed the Great Wall of China! I made it to the highest point and it was definitely a humbling and amazing experience. After climbing the Great Wall, I had the best Chinese food that I have had ever since I came to China. It was so good that I am not sure if I even got a chance to record the food before I ate it. The restaurant was amazing and they had western toilets (which is very exciting because usually they have squatting toilets)! Definitely a 10/10 experience. Next, we traveled to the Silk Market and did some bargaining. After the Silk Market, we went to dinner at another great restaurant.

After we got the instructions from Sunny, our tour guide, we embarked on our journey up to the top of the wall.

The steps were steeper than they looked. In the beginning, there were more steeper steps because of the huge incline. The view was amazing. Whenever I stopped to take breaks, I would just look out and see an amazing view.

It took us thirty minutes to reach the first tower. This is the view from the first tower.

There were times that I thought that I was not going to make it to the top because it was so high and I did not think that I had any energy. If it was not for the #QuadSquad, I do not think I would have made it to the top. The #QuadSquad consists of Stephanie, Carla, Ahuoma and myself. We pushed each other to make it to the top.

At tower seven, we thought that we were going to start heading down because we had to be back to the bus in 30 minutes, but it was Ahuoma who pushed us to keep going up higher. I would not have even been able to make it pass tower five if it was not for Carla, my break buddy. We kept stopping and taking breaks to catch our breath. Lastly, Stephanie, who was always in the front, kept reassuring us that we could make it and that we were almost at the top. It is because of these three people that I conquered one of the seven wonders of the world and for that I am very grateful. It is surreal that at the age of 19 I could say that I made it to the highest point on the Great Wall of China. Truly is an amazing and humbling experience.

We ended up making it back to the bus 27 minutes late, but it was definitely worth it.

After we made it back to the bus, we went straight to lunch. This was the best lunch that I have had since I been in Beijing. Compliments to the chef!

There was some orange chicken that tasted like heaven. My table went for that chicken first and we forgot that one of the people sitting with us went to the bathroom (sorry Geo. . .). By the time that he came out the bathroom, all of the orange chicken was gone and we all looked up at him with very little regret.

This restaurant was also a gem because they did not have any squatting toilets! It may seem like something that is not that exciting, but being able to use the bathroom on a western toilet became one of the many small pleasures that we experienced on the trip.

Squatting Toilet vs Western Toilet

After the AMAZING lunch that we had, we took a trip to the Silk Market. At the silk market, we got the experience to bargain for things. It was so much fun. I bought a kimono. At first, the lady was trying to charge me almost 1200 yuan, but eventually I talked her down to 170 yuan. That is a steal because 1 yuan is equal to about 7 U.S. dollars. So, technically, I spent only 24 dollars.