Hey again!
I know I just posted another blog simultaneously but I am trying to take advantage of as much free internet as I can because it is expensive on the ship! This blog is about the greatest day I had in China so I felt it was necessary to dedicate an entire post to it.
I responded to comments on the other Beijing blog that I posted right before this one at the same time so no point in doing it again.
The picture I chose is me on the wall and there is a story behind it but I explained it in detail below so I will just let you read it.
Okay so our final day in Beijing (Day 6 in China, Day 5 of the trip, February 21st, and my dad’s Birthday!!) was my most memorable day on the trip so far!!! We woke up early as usual for breakfast at the hotel before loading up the buses and heading outside the city. Our first stop of the day was at the Beijing International Kungfu School!! It was crazy!! The students at this school focus on learning the art of Kungfu. To pay for their schooling, they put on demonstrations and even act as stunt doubles/extras in Hollywood movies. The campus was a simple dormitory building, a courtyard used for training and exercise, and two smaller demonstration building used for performances and competitions. We weren’t exactly given a tour of the facilities but we kind of got one because we had to walk through the courtyard to get to the demonstration building where the students put on a private demonstration for us. Yeah we got to see a Kungfu Demonstration!! Kungfu is widely known as a martial arts form but not many people are aware of the artistic nature behind the skill. Our demonstration was composed of 5+ segments. It’s hard to describe exactly what they were doing but it involved a lot of flips, kicks, jabs, and rolls. It was SICK!! The coolest part in my opinion was watching them do the session where they broke a lot of stuff. To name a few: one guy broke an iron plate on his forehead and another snapped a wooden pole in half with his adams apple. With his ADAMS APPLE?!!?!?! If you don’t believe the last one (I wouldn’t either if someone told me so I don’t blame you) I have a video to prove it. After the demonstration we were allowed to hang out with the monks and take pictures as well as get a small lesson in simple moves that we could practice. Some of the pics we took were sick because the monks would like act like they were kicking us or poses where they jumped over us. Definitely a cool experience to see them perform, and then get a chance to interact with them.
From the school we headed out of town a ways and stopped at lunch at a local restaurant that was located in a greenhouse. It was a little weird eating in a greenhouse and something I never thought that I would do personally. The lunch was the normal family style Chinese cuisine but for some reason we all really like the rice at this place. Don’t know what it was but the rice was just really good! They also gave us this pork dish with peanuts, let me just tell you it was hotter than anything I have ever had before. Nothing in Mexico compared to this stuff. My sinuses cleared up so fast! Then none of us could get the taste out of our mouth lol. My friend Allison and me where two of the first people to try it, so everyone got a good laugh when we started freaking out and chugging water. I mentioned earlier that the Chinese serve a lot of vegetables with their meals. Well you all would be very proud of me, I branched out and ate a good majority of the vegetables. It was a big joke because I bet I ate more green vegetables in the past 8 days than I ate all last year. Haha oh well…when in China, do as the Chinese do!!
After lunch it was time for the highlight of the day. THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA!!!!
Ahhhhhh I don’t even know where to start?!?! It was indescribable! The section of the wall that we went to was the Mutianyu Great Wall. For this section you have to take a gondola from the parking lot up to the wall because this is a section that is nestled into the mountains. Getting to explore this mountainous section of the wall was special for a couple reasons. First, the views were incredible. I love being in the mountains and then to be standing on the GREAT WALL of China and seeing it winding between mountain peaks and disappearing in both directions was just surreal. Second, there were no other tourists around. This section isn’t the most easily accessible section and far enough away from Beijing that not many foreign tourists visit the spot. Besides some Chinese tourists it was basically just our SAS group and the wall. We hiked along 8 stations of the wall (a station is the section between 2 guard towers) and took more photos than any of us know what to do with.
Okay mom don’t read the next part cause it might upset you. Haha just kidding…kinda. So the guard towers that I just mentioned were situated along the walls at intervals but there was no way to get to the top of them because the ladders had been removed. Well I really wanted to get on top of one! Soooooo, Jeremy and I noticed that there weren’t any signs saying we couldn’t climb on the wall, and there was no police or “wall guards” (I mean it is a pretty big wall, it would take a lot of cops to guard) so we were like, “Let’s climb it!” If you climbed up on the side of the actual wall, which was easy, then you could walk across the side and get over to the tower where we found a foot-hold to propel ourselves up high enough to grip the edge and climb on top. The only dangerous part was that if you slipped you feel off the wall and about 70+ feet to the mountain side below. Oh well we made it and it was AWESOME!!! We got some really sweet pics, including the picture that I did for this blog post. The reason I like this picture so much is because it is very similar to a pic I took outside Barcelona a couple summer ago (except for the fact that The Great Wall is WAY cooler!!!). You can kind of tell but I am standing on the edge of the wall in a little nook, but the edge none the less, with a straight drop behind me. Sorry mom…kinda lol. Well we had been ahead of most of the SAS group so when they saw us up on the tower a lot of people decided they wanted to do it too. That’s right…trend setta baby!!! The views were sweet from on top of the tower and it was awesome getting to chill up there for a little bit. Getting down from the tower was a little hairy but we all made it down safe and sound for the most part (couple people scraped themselves up but nothing serious) and continued hiking around.
Gahhhhhhh I still can’t believe I got to experience the Great Wall!! A year ago I had no clue I would get the opportunity to go on Semester at Sea, let alone see the Great Wall! A couple of us were talking about it as we were walking along and it was so weird thinking that we were actually there. We were actually walking on the Great Wall of China!! After 2 hours of hiking around it was time to head back down to the base of the mountain to do a little market shopping before boarding the buses. I mentioned that we used a gondola to get up, but to get down we got to ride in little single person toboggans on a steel track! Okay that was fun…all you have is a hand break and using it is optional. Yeah I didn’t use mine except for when I came flying around a corner and Jeremy, who was in front of me, had stopped because there was a slow Chinese family making their way down in front of us. Yeah I didn’t stop in time and plowed into Jeremy but we just laughed and kept going. The toboggan was just another random surprise that none of us knew about that was so sweet!!
The bus ride back to Beijing was a little over 1.5 hours so a lot of people slept (not me, how could I sleep after seeing THE Great Wall?!?!). Our last dinner of the trip was at a local restaurant that was similar to everywhere else we had been. But the real finale to the trip was after dinner. Our last activity as a group was to specially attend an authentic Chinese Acrobatic show. The show was held in a theater much like you would expect to watch a Broadway show in. Okay these acrobats made the Kungfu dudes (which were wicked sweet) look lame. They were doing things that were amazing!! A couple of people in our SAS group had seen Cirque De So Le before and they said it didn’t even compare to what we all saw. They said that these acrobats made the Cirque De So Le people look like amateurs. I personally don’t know about that but because I haven’t seen Cirque De So Le, but all I know it that whatever I saw was outstanding. We were all sitting on the edge of our seats the whole time just waiting to see what they would do next. It was the perfect ending to the best SAS trip we could have ever asked for!!
Looking at the Great Wall, I couldn’t help but think about my tower and source of protection…Jesus Christ. Compared to Christ, even something as Immense and Incredible as the Great Wall is reduced to nothing. The protection provided by the Great Wall pales in comparison to the protection provided by our Lord and Savior. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe” Proverbs 18:10. “Jesus, Jesus, you are my tower Lord. Jesus, Jesus, the rock I stand on. Jesus, Jesus, there is no other name, like Your name…there is no other name, like Your name…ohhhhh Looorrrddddd and, I am weak, but, YOU are strong, and, I know I must learn to wait on YOU!!!” Brad Kilman. Christ will never leave us nor forsake us and His power is second to no one.
Love you guys and hope all is well back home!
T
No comments:
Post a Comment