*Cue some sort of Chick-Rock Empowerment Music and a montage of aerial views of Beijing and various shots of my friends and I laughing...* Previously on this blog. Mullen and I adventured to Beijing. We were having the time of our lives and despite shopping detours, we eventually made our way to the Great Wall of China. After buying jade souvenirs, we were on our way - we weren't going to let any more drama ruin this. --- Oh. Wait. Sorry. There's been an MTV reality show marathon going on here and for I moment I forgot myself, and that even though they're insanely addicting - everyone I know is (or appears to be) leading a much more
fulfilling, exciting and all around better life than 1/2 the people on those shows. I know its an impromptu rant, but being abroad and from Southern California makes me realize how much I resent the way the rest of the world perceives "California Girls." I resolve to become famous and show them all what we're really like.
Okay, rant over. The REAL point. This post is the second part of our first full day in Beijing. So after the Jade City (where I bought 2 items - a very sweet cross pendant and a "happy family sphere" for my grandparents), the Ming Tombs, Chinese
soju and lunch we were finally headed for the wall. When we were 1/2-way there, our guide pointed out a partially built amusement park on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. He told us it was supposed to be
Beijing's Disneyland but they lost funding and just quit the project. Nobody bothered to demolish it and so it's been there about 20% complete for nearly ten years. Now, I don't know if he just translates "theme park" as "Disneyland" or if it was official. There was a good size castle being built though so, who knows?! I took pictures as the bus sped by for everyone at home. WISHES! Of course, as much as I love Disney, I am pretty sure the Great Wall trumps anything they could come up with. The drive to the wall was really strange for me. It was so - normal. I am not sure what I expected but it seemed so surreal to be speeding through the suburbs of
Beijing towards one of the most famous landmarks on Earth! And then, before we knew it, our bus was weaving through the curved roads, and if you looked up the side of the mountain, you could barely make it out.
Immediately the cameras started flashing, our fist views of the Great Wall!
The "North Pass" of Juyongguan pass, known as the Badaling. When used by the Chinese to protect their land, this section of the wall has had many guards to defend China’s capital [Beijing]. Made of stone and bricks from the hills, this portion of the Great Wall is 7.8 meters (25.6 ft) high and 5 meters (16.4 ft) wide. When we got there it was much smaller than I expected - not that it wasn't enormous. But in my mind I had built it up to be massive, and it was actually quite narrow at some points and very, very LONG. So - with that, sort of unceremoniously, we began our climb. And I'm not joking when I say climb. I feel that the Republic of China should change the name from the Great Wall to the Great Stairs because, man alive, my
Rainbows and I were not cut out for it. In my 6 weeks of being here, I haven't regretted forgetting my
Tevas at home more than that day. It wasn't only that it was a steep climb, but that the steps were completely uneven. As you climbed higher, of course it got progressively more difficult. The
banister on the side didn't so much reach your arm, as your ankle, and instead of walking up stairs, I felt like I was climbing a ladder. Some steps were nearly 20 inches high and only about 6 or 7 inches deep! One had to look just at the step in front of them to avoid vertigo. Of course, Andrea and I stopped every chance we got and snapped pictures of the scenery. Everyone on our tour was taking
pictures for everyone else and
double checking they turned out perfect -after all, this isn't a picture you'll get to take again. And thanks to digital cameras, we could all be a little vain and make sure we looked our best. After we'd been climbing a fair amount of time, we found the spot we knew we wanted to take THE picture. If the Great Wall were a landmark in the states, this is where you would have found the "Kodak Picture Point" marker. Our first attempt at our picture was no good because the Chinese men we'd asked to take it wouldn't get out of the shot. Another man walked by and translated for us as I was trying to get my camera back from them saying, "They are saying they would like to take many more pictures of you..." Yeah.
Skeevy, what?
Anyway, after that we were invaded by Korea. Seriously. A Korean
Taekwondo team came charging up the wall behind us, in uniforms and all, with their director leading the way with a giant Korean flag. They were shouting "Korea!" as the ran - yes RAN - up the wall. Next thing we knew, Andrea was trying to take my picture and a number of Korean boys were surrounding me sporting either peace signs or their best
spidey-poses. So we played along and posed for some pictures with them. It was really hysterical, they were so enthusiastic! One of the girls on the trip was at the watch tower ahead of us and
caught an amazing aerial photo of the incident. After we felt confident that we had snapped the shot that Andrea and I will frame forever, we
proceeded to climb on. The views just grew more and more spectacular as we went. We reached a watch tower that we were able to climb up to the to of - so we did. This was
probably the most difficult part of the climb though. The stairs were super steep (
CUAers, think of the stairs leading up to the catwalk by the projection room - okay now steeper than that, and with no handles). In addition, the stones were worn down so much that they were very slick and actually curved in the middle where
they had been walked upon for at least over 1000 years! The Chinese man who followed us up and later, down them was concerned, and yet very amused by us silly white girls attempting this in flip flops. After taking the bird's eye view of the pass, and the whole valley, we climbed back down and continued.
If we'd realized how close to the top we were, I am sure we would have pressed on. But because we only had a half hour before we were supposed to be back on the bus - and we did (ironically) want leave some time to shop for souvenirs - we climbed up to what we believed to be another watch tower. When we reached it we realized it was a refreshment center and toilets, but hey, whatever. We took a few photos and some videos and began to make our way down. Some of the other people on the tour had caught up with us and we found out we were only about 5 or 10 minutes from the top but we still elected to just head back. (Whatever, it just gives me a reason to go back! Shanghai, anyone?) Walking down proved just as difficult as climbing up and I nearly fell once. It was pretty amusing, actually, because I caught myself and was fine. - If anyone did though, I would be the person to fall down the Great Wall of China. Right? - Going down the stairs was also
trippy for me too because my depth perception was off because of my cold. It got to the point where I just put one shaking leg in front of the other, and tried to just keep my head up and walk down. It felt just like dancing or even being on stage in general. Just walking down the
stairs without looking, and trying to use my core to keep me in one piece. And, because I have no shame, I carried my arms in second position whenever there was room to help keep myself balanced. All in all it proved to be quite the workout! Everyone had jelly legs after we'd reached the bottom. If anyone stood still on their feet for two long, you noticed their muscles just start to spasm as if to say "Are you kidding me? Give me a break!" So, we did! We bought postcards, and more ice cream to celebrate; took some old bottles of water and tried to wash the filth from
climbing off our hands and feet, snapped our last shots of the wall and went home.
Climbing the Great Wall: completely normal day. Yeah, right. I could probably write or talk about those 3 hours of my life for 3 years. Aside from all the fun memories made with Mullen along the way, there were so many emotions (shocker) that I felt. It was almost like I went on auto-pilot for awhile and just climbed without thinking. In visiting and climbing the wall, I became part of something so much infinitely larger than me. People have been climbing
Juyong Pass for 2,000 years. I am one of millions to have walked there. When we stopped on top of the one watch tower I just tried to imagine who had been there before me; what the man who in the dead of winter 2,000 years earlier patrolled that tower to protect his kingdom was like and what on earth would think if someone told him that one day some 22 year old in sunglasses and flip flops would pose as Mary Jane for a bunch of Korean
taekwondo students in a spider-man picture... All joking aside, do you think he would have ever believed that his post would become a tourist destination? How many people have climbed there before me, and how many still will after me? That wall has seen more than you or I could ever comprehend - and to me that just seems -
je ne sais crois! It's like there's a part of me that's always going to be there. The Chinese call people who climb the wall heroes, (and if you like, for about 10 bucks you can buy a souvenir certificate that officially proves you are one) and I feel that it's fitting.
Peace,
Erica
In all honestly, it was all worth it b/c the kids really loved it, and would have never gotten a Halloween otherwise. But here's the rundown of our TWO day Halloween party... just for shiggles.
In all honestly, it was all worth it b/c the kids really loved it, and would have never gotten a Halloween otherwise. But here's the rundown of our TWO day Halloween party... just for shiggles.
The kids costumes for the most part fell in one of 4 categories: there were a lot of Snow Whites, a lot of Power Rangers, a handful of Harry Potters and a few Angels - and most importantly 150 happy preschool students that went home EARLY. Then came the afternoon students...
candy and the kids practically revolted. At 6:40, I closed our room, didn't bother washing of my Minnie Mouse make-up and went straight home ... I was asleep by 7:00. It was great, haha! THEN...
mention the teachers had to come in costume again, so that didn't help. Then we had Halloween for the afternoon students who come for Tues/Thurs classes (can't gyp them!) ... we were supposed to stay until 7:20, but I wanted to be sure I got to mass for All Saint's Day which was at 7:00, so I left when we had our break from 5:30-6:20... by the time I made it back to SLP the clean up was finished so I got off the hook there! Good karma I guess. I was so out of it I went home and crashed again...
I have never been so tired of Halloween in my life. But, like I said, it was worth it because the students really loved it, and I was truly able to spread the spirit of Halloween!! haha.
