Beijing: Day 2

Day 2:

We were all up and ready at 6.00 am since we had booked vans that would take us to the Great Wall at 6. It was a 2 and a half hour ride. It was beauuutiful when we got there. As soon as we started our climb it started raining. Good thing we bought raincoats the previous day right? wrong! They weren't raincoats. We were all drenched soon.

However, the climb was exhilarating! There are 12 towers and a place to rest between each tower. The climb between the towers got a little tiring sometimes but mostly it was great to just take in the scenery and take in the fact that we were on the Great Wall of China. At one point during our climb, half the group went a little ahead and half of us stayed behind. Then we yelled GO and the other group yelled BLUE. It was great doing that on the Great Wall. We also did the "Where the Hell is Matt" dance. Of course, when we got to the top we sang "Hail to the Victors".

We had originally planned on ziplining to the bottom once we got to the top but because of the rain the Zipline was closed. The other way to get down was to take the cable cars from tower 8. So we began our descent from tower 12. I slipped loads of times and fell on my behind twice. I was still having a great time though! We saw a couple in their wedding clothes taking their wedding pictures in one of the towers. Finally, we reached the bottom. I think the whole thing took around 4 hours. We were all tired after the Wall. We rested during the drive back and then went to see the Olympic Stuff.

View before we started climbing the wall

View before we started climbing the Wall

Michigan Students

We were in the clouds. After sometime, we were above the clouds

So high up!

At the place where the Olympic stuff was, we saw the place where they lit the torch, the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube. It had stopped raining and the weather was nice so we hung around there till sunset so that we could see the buildings lighted up. We did the " Where the Hell is Matt" dance again and a 10 people pyramid was built. While we were doing all this, the Chinese people there were very curious and there were many times when we were encircled by people taking pictures of us. One man asked me to take a picture with him.

And then the lights came on and it was beautiful!

After hanging out for a while more, we went to dinner, showered and went straight. It was one of the best, most exhilarating and most tiring days of my life!

Place where they lit the torch

Bird's Nest

Water Cube

Pyramid!

Nayana