The Great Wall

My alarm went off at 7.30am.  I looked at Jessie who did not look amused to be awoken at this time and thought ‘bugger this’, and swiftly switched the alarm off.  I closed my eyes, and the next thing I know, Jessie is waking me up telling me it’s 8.30am and the driver will be here in 30 minutes to take us to the Great Wall of China.

A bit of rushing followed as I had a shower, grabbed a bite to eat, packed my backpack, put on make-up and had my morning cigarette.  We were 15 minutes late.  Oops.  The drive to the Great Wall was uneventful – mainly because I was asleep the whole time.  Though somehow I still managed to get motion sickness.

Once we arrived at the Great Wall, we needed to buy our tickets.  Easier said than done.  We didn’t fancy the walk up to the wall, so we opted to go on the cable car instead.  We each bought our own ticket.  Then we realised we hadn’t bought the same ticket.  There was much confusion as we tried to figure out which cable car we had booked and how to return one of the tickets.  The cashiers were not impressed with us.

But we managed to sort it out – eventually.  Then we came to the cable cars.  They didn’t stop for you – you had to stand in front of it with your back to it and lean back and jump up then quickly pull the safety-bar down over you before you left the safety of the platform and were faced with the very, very long drop down in to the trees.  The ride itself was very nice and relaxing and the view was excellent.  Then we had to get off.  There were signs that said to lift the safety-bar before you got to the platform.  We ignored those – there was no way in hell that we were going to sit in a chair with nothing stopping us from falling hundreds of meters to our death.  So once we got to the platform we had to quickly push up the safety-bar and jump of and run to avoid the cable to car from knocking you over.  I’m ashamed to say that we both squealed as we made our way to safety and away from the cable car.

The Wall itself is amazing. It took my breath away.  We spent a good few hours exploring it.  We saw huge insects, and I saw a massive spider about the size of my hand eating an insect of about the same size.  As my knee was starting to hurt a bit, we decided to take a break and have our lunch.  Then Jessie explored the wall further.  I lay down in the shade, enjoying the surroundings and fell asleep.  The next thing I know, 45 minutes had passed me by.  I had fallen asleep on the Great Wall of China.  My parents have always said that I could sleep anywhere – and now I know it’s true!

The Great Wall

Me posing

Toboggan ride!

To get back down from the Wall, we went on a toboggan – which is SO MUCH FUN.  I wanted to go back up the Wall just to go back down again.  It was brilliant.

It was early evening by the time we arrived back home.  After everyone had gone to bed, we thought it would be fun to watch a DVD.  Could we get the DVD player to work?  Of course not.  We were unplugging things, plugging things in, fiddling with things and trying to work out the TV control.  The TV control is in Chinese.  We soon gave up and watched a DVD on Jessie’s laptop instead.

The next day (having learnt from my mistake from the previous day) I got up at 8am.  We went to the Temple of Heaven and the Lama Temple.  Both were absolutely amazing.  We did manage to get lost in the Temple of Heaven – not our fault though, the map was wrong!  And in the end it was nice – it meant we had our lunch in a lovely park part of the Temple.

Me in posing again

Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, inside the Temple of Heaven complex.

The buildings were stunning, absolutely beautiful, and the history of the place is fascinating.  We both loved it, and of course posed for lots of tourist style pictures.  After a few hours, we returned to our driver (but not before exploring a small local market) who took us to the Lama Temple.  Also amazing.  I watched some locals light up their incense and pray.  Took pictures of the various religious buildings and statues, and soaked up the atmosphere.

Part of the Lama Temple

Locals praying

China is great!