Still in China. Today was pretty amazing, did one thing I never even considered doing in my life- walked along the Great Wall of China! Pretty Awesome. Now a new goal to add my huge list of life goals: go backpacking along the Wall, how cool would that be.
First, getting there, that was a pretty fun adventure in itself. After walking in circles (literally) we finally made it to the train station to get to the Wall. Turns out there is quite a tricky system with lines and trains with no assigned seats here in China. We notice the line starting to grow by the station doors so I get in it, about 30sec later, there is no line just a crush of people packing closer and closer. I frantically motion over the rest to get in line with me before it gets too packed in and we wait there (still like 20min before the doors open!) The doors finally open and there is a surge of humans pushing through, so we go along with it out the doors, down the steps to the platform. When all of a system people starting racing around us, it was the craziest thing, people are running like crazy to the train a ways down the platform, i look around, then I booked it. It was a mad dash through the crowds to a car farther down the train to find open seats (which I did quite successfully I might add, 4 in a row) which I then had to guard, hoping the others would find me. Thus we found ourselves with seats during the hour ride to the stop (well sort of, most of the time was spent chasing Peter through the aisle.
Which brings me to another point, I really should start keeping tabs of the things Peter collects. Robin was definitely not exaggerating, probably the opposite, when it comes to Chinese people loving the little "golden haired" boy and giving him so many things. Every time he came back from a trip down the aisle he had a new treat- popcorn, sucker, crackers, oreos, chinese flag- and that's just a few of the ones from today! He also made several new friends, one of which was a little girl who guarded over him and always made sure he returned back to his momma if he went too far, she was super cute. He taught her how to get free treats.
To be continued...
First, getting there, that was a pretty fun adventure in itself. After walking in circles (literally) we finally made it to the train station to get to the Wall. Turns out there is quite a tricky system with lines and trains with no assigned seats here in China. We notice the line starting to grow by the station doors so I get in it, about 30sec later, there is no line just a crush of people packing closer and closer. I frantically motion over the rest to get in line with me before it gets too packed in and we wait there (still like 20min before the doors open!) The doors finally open and there is a surge of humans pushing through, so we go along with it out the doors, down the steps to the platform. When all of a system people starting racing around us, it was the craziest thing, people are running like crazy to the train a ways down the platform, i look around, then I booked it. It was a mad dash through the crowds to a car farther down the train to find open seats (which I did quite successfully I might add, 4 in a row) which I then had to guard, hoping the others would find me. Thus we found ourselves with seats during the hour ride to the stop (well sort of, most of the time was spent chasing Peter through the aisle.
Which brings me to another point, I really should start keeping tabs of the things Peter collects. Robin was definitely not exaggerating, probably the opposite, when it comes to Chinese people loving the little "golden haired" boy and giving him so many things. Every time he came back from a trip down the aisle he had a new treat- popcorn, sucker, crackers, oreos, chinese flag- and that's just a few of the ones from today! He also made several new friends, one of which was a little girl who guarded over him and always made sure he returned back to his momma if he went too far, she was super cute. He taught her how to get free treats.
First glimpses of the wall on the train
Peter getting treats
Finally we made it! It was pretty spectacular, the wall really does just snake along following the ridge exactly, going up and down, sometimes at almost 45degree angles, slanting at points, uneven steps, and very few sections of flat walkway. And we barely saw a tenth of it. Definitely a good incentive to be fit your whole life, there was one really old grampa climbing around up there too, lots of people were taking pictures with him. Though we were also very glad we took the cable car up (well I think Robin is still undecided on that point), as we starting walking down to the bottom, it was very steep.
Can you hear me now?
Peter's siblings are going to be so jealous of him someday
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