One year ago today - October 13, 2007

One year ago today we were standing on the Great Wall of China. What an amazing experience.

That morning I woke up around 3:00 AM and could not go back to sleep until about 6:00 AM, and we needed to eat breakfast and meet the group by 8:30 AM. To my enjoyment, the hotel's breakfast was unlike the buffet kind we have here. Sure they had a few sweet rolls and I believe you could even have a chef prepare you an omlet of sorts, but the array of vegetables and what we would normally consider either "lunch" or "dinner" food was wonderful! I am not a huge breakfast food person to start, so this was right up my alley.

We found one of the families* and they introduced us to the other. It was like a big family meal from the get go. Once fed, we ran up to our rooms to grab our day's gear and off we went. It took a good 1.5+ hours to get to the section of the Great Wall that we were going to tour. The drive was great. Not only did we get to know the other families better but we also got to see China. When we think of a street sweeper here, you invision a big truck like machine. Not there. It's an actual person sweeping the street with a broom.

Our group took a gondolla/tram up the side of the mountain on the furthest left section (shown on the map above) of the maintained wall. Only a fraction of the Wall is still maintained to this day.

I'm not quite sure how far we walked on the wall, but we were up there for about 3 hours, walking most of the time. It was amazing. The stone work, awesome. And to think people built this by hand!

Our whole group walked to the end of the maintained section. It wasn't what you would call an easy walk by any means. Both T-Daddy and I were thanking our cycling instructors as we scaled sections of the wall that were more like ladders than stairs.

On our way back we stopped at a great restaurant and had lunch. I wouldn't be able to find the restaurant again without going this route and without our guide.

Later that evening, L & D, T-Daddy and I went out to find a place to eat and to gather some snacks for the next couple of days.

Due to shear exhaustion from jet-lag and fear that we could get sick and have a new baby to take care of we ended up back at our hotel for a so-so dinner and beer all around. We figured that the alcohol would kill any bacteria...and it sure tasted good.

It was a thrilling but exhausting day.

Tonight I took a Dim Sum class!** It was actually a vegetarian Dim Sum class, but it would be easy to figure out and add in meat wherever we'd like. So people, prepare yourself. Mmmmmmm yum yum Dim Sum!

*Thankfully I was able to meet/see L before the trip. I'd talked to one of the other families via email, but that didn't put a face to it.
**T-Daddy and I also finished The Departed...oh my, that was a great movie!