The Great Wall

I still cannot believe it. I have grown up seeing pictures of this world wonder—one that was only accessible to me through visual media. But today, that all changed. I walked across the Great Wall.

We hired a tour guide who met us at our hotel with transportation at 9 a.m., and were whisked away one and a half hours outside the city to the Wall. We drove through poor villages, beautiful farmland that reminded us so much of the Central Valley of California. As we got closer to our destination, another area with a poor village on one side of the street, and vacation homes on the other. This really highlighted one truth of China: that while one street can separate the two, the gap between the rich and poor is, in reality, vast. As our van wove through more countryside spotted with Chinese tourist traps, and further up into the mountains, we spotted it. High upon the ridges wove the Great Wall itself.

Due to the amount of traffic (think Grand Canyon National Park), we hopped out of our van as we neared our destination. After short hike up part of the hill, a short pit stop (thank goodness I had brought my own TP…the restroom had run out!), we purchased our tickets for the gondola, which would ferry us the rest of the way up the mountain. You can choose to hike up to the Wall, but today we chose to gondola it in order to save some time, because we planned on visiting the Summer Palace also this day. The mountains here are very steep, and we were definitely grateful for the gondolas! After a short ride--and no incidents--we were there. Touching and walking on the stones of the ancient Great Wall.

I still do not know if I can believe that I was actually there. The view of the Great Wall was extensive and breathtaking…yet I was walking upon its stones, and climbing its guard towers! It seems so surreal…as if the glass surrounding historical artifacts in a museum suddenly melted away, and all the patrons began to handle the artifacts and make use of them. This is a national treasure of China…and I was allowed to dirty it with my shoes and with the corrosive oil from my hands!