The Great Wall of China

28. April 2008 by ilanamong.

The Great Wall of China is not anything I expected it to be. I thought it would be a regular wall, but it ended up to be a big long stair wall that is on top of mountains and winds around like a snake. Instead of walking next to the wall, you actually walk on top of it. Since it follows the curve of mountains, there are many steps, both up and down. There are really big steps, little shallow steps, not many, but some normal sized steps, and ramps in some places. This is the first time I have ever climbed so many steps and all of our legs hurt. I read that the wall might be as long as 4000 miles. I’m glad I didn’t have to walk that far today. Luckily, since the wall is on top of the mountain, you can ride on a chair lift to the top, otherwise you would have to first climb the mountain, then you wouldn’t have any energy for all the stairs. It was fun and the sights from the chair lift going all the way up the mountain were so beautiful. The only thing that wasn’t great was the bees. I’m not sure why, but there were so many bees that you couldn’t count them all. There was also a few stink bugs.

After walking back and forth on the wall for about two hours, we had to get down. There is a really cool tobaggon ride that you can take down the mountain. You sit in a little car with wheels and go zooming down a long chute for about 7 minutes. Luckily, the car has a break–you pull back to stop, and push forwards to go faster. It was so much fun. I was afraid my mom and brother (who were together) would bump my dad and me (who where also together). They didn’t.

At the bottom, there are a lot of people selling fruits, vegtables, tee shirts, hats, post cards, and more. We bought a few things. My dad is a really good bargainer–we walked away a few times and had people chasing after us. We were glad to find that our taxi driver had waited for us, otherwise we didn’t know how we would get back to the hotel. We asked the taxi driver to find us a restaurant along the road for lunch. We found a little place and we all ate together. The taxi driver did not speak any English, so it was a little difficult. We came home had a rest and went out for a nice light dumpling dinner at our dim sum reataurant. It was a very fun day at the great wall and I’ll never forget it.

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