Well it has definitely been awhile but it is because I have been keeping quite busy! To start off, I finally went to the Great Wall of China. It truly is a breathtaking sight. The day was absolutely beautiful so we could see for what seemed like miles. The vastness of the wall is really not conveyed well enough in photographs. We climbed so many stairs that day! SO MANY!!! First we had to climb up the mountain to get to the wall, then once on the wall required more climbing because, as we all know, the wall goes along the mountains. Up and down, thus on the wall we were on the tip of the mountainside.
I must admit that I would never have made it all around the wall like I did without my wonderful travel buddies. "All for one and one for all..."
To the right is the very long way we climbed to get to a good high peak of the wall. On top of this peak we could see so much of the mountainside. It truly did "roll." The dips and grooves of the mountains looked like they just came out of the ancient Chinese paintings.
Though many of the "incredible stories" of the Great Wall are in fact false and pure myth (there are no dead bodies buried under the wall) it was still nice to know that China is perpetuating the legacy...
(modern day workers of the wall)
To finish this day I finally ate the famous Beijing Duck (aka Peking Duck). It was so good, words cannot describe how melt-in-your-mouth this dish is. We sat and ate for hours, just enjoying the food and the people. Surrounding us were all of these Chinese business getting PLASTERED off of Bai Jiu (famous Chinese liquor) and just eating duck and drinking, toasting everything (I couldn't understand what they were saying so I filled in the blanks with..."Wang Peng just made the perfect duck wrap...Gan Bei!).
The next day we went to the Summer Palace. It was another really beautiful and sunny day. It was extremely surreal because coming to the palace a cab just drops us off at this gate. We walk through and pass the main gift shop and behind the main greeting hall all of a sudden there is a HUGE lake, glistening, with boats all over the place. A path goes around the lake leading to these incredible structures built for a queen. The fun part about this place, despite the historical awesomeness and the cultural significance, is that while we walked along the lake classical Chinese instrumental music was played continuously. I felt like I was just dropped into a Chinese soap opera with my own soundtrack. I am definitely a fan!
One cannot forget the marble boat which rests right at the bank of the lake deep into the vast area of the palace. It was quite beautiful but kind of creepy in the same way. It just looked so ghostly. The color, the fact that no one was on it, it just looked haunted. I can only imagine what the place looked like with the empress roaming around. Everything brand new and freshly painted, the water clear because pollution hasn't yet infected it. Picturesque, magical, all those good words...
Well there is still a lot to tell, today I went to the art district of Beijing and it was really interesting BUT that is for another entry. Which will hopefully happen sooner than usual.
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