Today they said that we were going to be going to Fragrant Hill to hike it. Knowing how sweaty I got on the Great Wall, I decided to dress more appropriately (with a cotton t-shirt and actual sneakers). Once we got there, though, we found out that Fragrant Hill was in no way a hill. It is a mountain. The hike up to the top was so windy and steep, I couldn’t keep up with the first group of overachievers and had to fall back to the second group. It was a tough hike, and I was still sore from the Great Wall climb, but we made it. Two of the people in our group took the tram, but I feel like it was a great accomplishment for me to have climbed to the tippy top by foot. Not to mention, the ice cream that we bought at the top tasted a little sweeter because of the arduous hike.
Once we were at the top, some of us purchased ribbons to tie on to these wishing trees. I bought a health ribbon and wrote my name on it. The hike back down was almost as difficult because it took a lot to not barrel down the hill. Once we got to the bottom, Sarah and I bought some dried kiwi pieces to eat. We didn’t have to buy them though, because we ended up going straight from our sweaty hike to a really fancy restaurant. It was a pecking duck place that served whole duck, brains and all. I felt kind of strange wearing such casual, sweaty clothes to such a high class restaurant. But at the same time, I figured that it was China and anything goes.
When we got back, Sarah, Ryan and I all tried to find stamps for our postcards that we bought by the lake. It was a lot harder than we thought, and we did it all by foot. After we got back, we hung out with the rest of the group and got to experience some more of China’s night life. If there’s one thing that America and China have in common, its their sense of importance for the night life.