#81 Pt. 1-- Beijing, China

After lots of waiting and sleeping and waiting and time traveling and waiting, we are FINALLY here! We landed in Beijing at 5-ish in the morning on Friday. We were worried about our tour guide not showing up but were relieved when we saw him holding up a sign with our names. He introduced himself as Oliver. Didn't you know that was originally a Chinese name? Haha, to be fair we did give a good college try to pronouncing his real name but I think it's best we just stuck with Oliver.


So we packed ourselves in a van and headed off to the Great Wall. (PS Rachelle, any opinions you have about Utah drivers might change if you ever experience driving here haha). On the way , Oliver told us the history of the wall. I'll be honest, I don't remember/had a hard time understanding all of it, but I did catch that it is about 6800 km in length and built over a span of about 2000 years. Wild, huh?

When we got there, we had the option of either walking up or taking a tram. I am SO glad we took the tram because to be honest, the walk would have been a 30 minute hike to rival the monestary trail that stole my dignity in Jericho. So here is the sketchy ski lift that took us up to the GREAT WALL!






 And the view looking back. I had to not think about it too much as to avoid having a panic attack.

When we reached the top, Oliver took us through a restored section of the wall and also showed us part of the wall that has not been restored so we could see the difference.









I LOVE that we got there so early because there were maybe only five or so other tourists we ran into. In what world do we get to have one of the seven wonders practically to ourselves!?






Now, some of you come to me and say, "You know, I am not convinced that the ancients had buns of steel." To that I say behold the stairs!

It was the like the Destiny's Child song "Bootylicious"

Stairs: "Beyonce, can you handle this? Tiffany, can you handle this?"

Me: [Panting but trying to stay cool]

Stairs: "I don't think you can handle this!"

Me: [Panting but giving up on the cool part]

Stairs: "I don't think you're ready for this jelly"

Me: [Legs trembling like a paper bag in the wind] "Touche stairs, touche."

Despite the jelly leg, we made it to the top (apparently, I had to sacrifice my lower leg to get here?....honestly who decided that was a cute pose, Tiffany?)

Oliver told us more stories at the top and even graced us with a few traditional Chinese songs. He also sang us an English song he knew but we hadn't heard of it. So we offered to teach him a song we did know. "You Are My Sunshine" was the classic we chose.

Oliver did try to teach us a Chinese song but I think he was tired of hearing his language slaughtered so we sang "You Are My Sunshine" all the way back to the entry point.

AAAHHHH! I just can't get over this view! It just keeps going and going!











Ok, now here is where Park City meets China, because in addition to the ski lift ascension, we took a tobaggan ride down--take that Alpine Slide! Teresa took some awesome video footage but I'll have to get it from her later. For now, just know it was pretty awesome....and I definitely did NOT ride down like an old lady in a skort.

 

When we reached the bottom, we were suprised to see the mass of students here for a field trip. Like I said, I'm glad, we made it here so early! 

From Beijing, we flew to Bangkok, arriving at our charming little hostel (the Smile Society--yup that's really it's name) around 9:30pm. I was never so glad to shower in my life. Now I'm up at the butt crack of dawn (thank you jet lag) but I'm excited to see what our first real day in Bangkok brings :) Stay tuned!