Day 22, the Beijing adventure continues....

Saturday I woke up very early, full of anticipation. Today was the big day…. The Great Wall of China! You just can’t beat this itinerary. Xiao Bo and Wang picked me up at 0900 after I checked out of the Hotel…. Tonight I fly to Xi’an, China. Our first stop this morning was to be the Ming Tombs. The remains of 13 of the 16 Ming Emperors are buried in a valley tucked behind the hills north of Tianjin (outskirts of Beijing). I visited the largest, the Chang Ling tomb. He was an impressive guy with a few accomplishments like building the Forbidden City, Great Wall. Temple of Heaven…… He was a pretty bad Emperor though when it came to treating the people well. Guess who had to build all that stuff. Anyway, the tour of the tombs was great, very lovely…. I love ancient Chinese architecture. After visiting the tombs we were finally off to see the Great Wall of China. Our visit was going to be in two locations. I figured that if I was coming this far I wanted to see two separate locations to get photos from two different perspectives. I just didn’t realize at the time how exhausting that was going to be. Our first stop was at Juyongguan, a very steep section of the wall. I didn’t realize how steep until I climbed to the top… talk about sweating like a pig, I was cooking. It was very dramatic and beautiful. Fulfilling a childhood dream is so special. I was a true lifetime highlight. After crawling back to the car we were off to the second section of the wall, the Badaling section. First we stopped for lunch at the Badaling Hotel. I relaxed for a bit, had a nice lunch and then it was off to climb the next wall. Xiao Bo pointed out that you can go either direction for the climb or in the end climb both…. Guess which one I chose? Yep! Just to show how crazy I am I climbed to the top in both directions. Talk about exhausting, what a thigh burner. The Great Wall of China was everything I thought it would be and more….. What an amazing adventure. Once I was out of gas, we headed for the Beijing Airport so I could continue the journey in Xi’an and explore the Terra Cotta Warriors….. Fabulous!