Today, we got up, had breakfast and headed off to the Great Wall. We got on the road and ran into some really bad traffic. Our group leaders decided it would probably be better to change plans then. Instead of the Badaling part of the wall, which we were supposed to go to, we ended up going to the Mutianyu section of the wall. Driving through the countryside of China was very interesting and different form the U.S. Instead of neighborhoods, there was a lot of open land and farmland. When we arrived to the Great Wall, there was a little town at the bottom, which was full of little shops. To get to the great wall, which was at the top of a fairly tall mountain, we had to hike. I was exhausted by the time we got to the top. It was 30 minutes of so of straight step climbing, some parts steeper than others. It was very rewarding to see what we made the climb for. As soon as you step up onto the wall, you feel like you are on top of the world due the height of the mountain. You can see everything. The wall seemed to go on forever. It just amazed me to think about how they got the materials to the top of this mountain to build this giant wall. Some parts seem like it should have been impossible due to the steepness of the mountain. Everybody was too tired to make the hike back down the mountain, so we took the cable car down. At the bottom, we got an “I climbed the Great Wall” t-shirt.
For lunch, we stopped at a local restaurant. The food was pretty good. There was one disturbing part though. We got a tray of chicken and discovered a full chicken foot in the bowl. Other than that I enjoyed the food. After we ate, we traveled back to the hotel for the night. We just hung out in Matt and Devin’s room. It was a day I was looking forward to for a long time and now it is over.