长城：The Greatest Wall in all of China

 

Last month I had an amazing experience spending a day at one of the wonders of the world.  The Great Wall is (not surprisingly) very long.  The section I went to is called 金山岭 (Jīnshānlǐng).  This area is only known by the local people, so I was very fortunate to see a less-touristy area.

This rock sits next to the stairs leading up to the wall.  I don’t remember what is written because I can’t decipher the handwriting, but this handwriting is considered the best in all of China.  Mao Zedong wrote this and many artifacts and historical areas have items with his handwriting on them.

 

 

I was very surprised that climbing the Wall was so tiring.  Before reaching the wall, we climbed stairs that seemed never-ending for about half an hour.  Then, we spent 4 hours on the Great Wall.  It was fascinating to walk on such a piece of history.  It was very challenging; it seemed you were either struggling to walk down insanely steep steps or you were climbing up a ramp perpendicular to the sky for an hour.

 

Although I felt it the entire next week, it was well worth the sweat and soreness.  At this location, the further you went the less and less “put-together” the wall got.  Every few sections is a large house type building.  Many have been rebuilt or fixed to accommodate the visitors, but it was amazing to see towers that haven’t been worked on since the wall was first built in about 200 BC!

 

 

It was great to have clear skies and beautiful weather while on the Great Wall with my program director and fellow Alliance students.  Seeing the Great Wall definitely met and exceeded all of my expectations!  These pictures don’t do it justice.  I think a person could spend an entire week walking the Wall and taking in the views.  After being in Beijing for 4 months, there was nothing more beautiful than one of the most famous monuments in history sitting amongst changing trees and tall mountains; I could have spent many more hours taking in all the views.

 

I am so thankful my group went to a non-touristy area of the Wall.  It was much less crowded, but I stuck out a lot more at 金山岭 than in the city.  Two different times I surprised the locals with my Chinese, which I’m beginning to have a lot of fun with!  A man kept telling his wife to stand closer to me so they could sneak a picture, and I turned to them and said “我听懂了” meaning, “I can understand what you’re saying”.  That really freaked them out and then they left me alone 🙂  I also heard two teenage girls who said that they had never seen so many foreigners in the same place before (there’s 12 of us total) and they couldn’t stop saying how beautiful everyone was; also most Chinese assume that I’m either Russian or English.  I heard them talking about how pretty the Russians were, and I said “我们都是美国人” “we’re all Americans”.  They were thrilled that I could communicate and we took pictures together.

 

It felt surreal to be at the Great Wall, looking back at my pictures it’s hard to believe that I was actually there.  It was an amazing feeling to have climbed on 2,200 years of history.