Climbing the Great Wall.. Lika a baws!

Hi everyone. It's me again. Finally found some time after three epic days to write to you again. Where do I even start? I have so much to tell you, i decided to split it up in two separate posts. In this one I'll focus on our last day in Beijing, the next will describe out first two days in Xi'an.

So I did it.. I have officially climbed The Great Wall. Capitals sure are in place here. Saturday morning, bright and early we headed out to a section of the wall near Beijing. It was a beautiful day on the weekend, so we sure weren't the only ones there. It was crowded! Apart from that is was also near 30*C (or 90*F). But we managed to hustle our way trough to the top, while we also got to take many great pictures. Unfortunately, I don't have all of these yet, but I will post some more of them once I can get my hands on them.

The long steep and windy road ahead of us. The farthest peak would be our destination

Nice view from The Great Wall

Hero Slope

The final stretch was called "Hero Slope", and the picture will make pretty clear why that is so. It was STEEP. But as I said we made it. we could officially call ourselves heroes!! (along with about 10000 other people that day..)

One of the first things we had noticed in Beijing, was that we weren't as much of a commodity as we were in Wuhan, being foreign and all. This was not any different at the start of out climb. However, as we made it to the top, this suddenly seemed to change. I guess many people thought it would be cool to have a picture with some Westerners at the top of the Great Wall. We really should have charged money! So a few nice minutes, and a lotta pictures later, we started our way down again. Why? Because we still had other things to do! As if climbing The Great Wall at such high temperatures wasn't enough, we also went to see the Forbidden City that same afternoon. Lots and lots of walking :)

So after a cool train ride down the Wall and another nice lunch in the city we continued our program. We got to the Forbidden city pretty late, though, so we only had little time pay a visit. It was impressive, but not that overwhelming. Maybe because it's really hard to beat something like the Great Wall. Here are some pictures:

In front of the main building in the Forbidden City

I'm just going to say it was a lion with a football (the real, round kind). Yay Holland

The Imperial Garden was probably my favorite part of the Forbidden City

After our visit to the Forbidden City, we concluded our visit to Beijing with a last night out. We were taking to Club Mix, which turned out to be a great choice. We did a lot of dancing and a little too much drinking, which only added to the fun. The next day we would travel to Xi'an, which will be the topic of my next blog.

Thank god this wasn't our table.. I don't think I would have survived!

I can't wait to post the stories and pictures of our trip to Xi'an, but I really need to get some sleep as well. We have been having so much fun, and doing so much sightseeing, I barely get to spend time in my room. I always look forward to writing new things on my blog, also because I feel like simply posting pictures isn't enough. I want to tell you about everything I do as well. This does take up a lot of time, but I hope it will be worth it. The number of visitors is still very high, so I am glad to know I can keep you all interested and entertained. Thanks again, for the comments, I really enjoy hearing from you all.

I think this sign says it all :) I will talk to you all again soon