Holy Greatness!

Check me out! Here I am standing on the Great Wall of China! :) :) :) :) :) :)
Today was an AWESOME day! I loved, loved, loved the Wall. It was everything I expected and more. (This picture was taken by a handsome young man I happened to meet on my way.)

The only organized tours I could find had shopping trips and other stops on the way. Ugh. I wanted plenty of time to hike at my own pace, so I hired a driver for the day and told him "NO SHOPPING!" Best money I ever spent. As I passed two different groups of people while hiking the opposite direction, I heard members of both comment on how they felt cheated by their "one hour hike" and had they know it was going to be this beautiful, they would've planned to stay all day. That's exactly what I wanted to avoid, so I was quite pleased with my splurge because I spent the better part of the day hiking. After all, the Wall was the main reason for my coming to China. Also, my driver was a cultural experience all on his own. He spoke about 15 words of English, and 10 of those were the numbers 1 - 10. But, we entertained each other on the hour plus drive to the wall with my Chinese phrasebook and his melodic questions (I tried to find out if he has a family--I think he has one son, don't quote me on that. Afterward, he pointed to my silver ring and started humming the wedding march as a question...too funny! Who needs words to communicate??) He also tried to teach me a few words in Chinese: bicycle, beautiful, and how to count.

On the way out to the Wall we passed by thousands of trees, lamp posts with solar panels, lots of farmland, several frozen ponds and streams, some older gentlemen ice fishing, and a sum total of about 5 bikes. I thought Beijing was supposed to be the city of bikes? I have hardly seen any here, and nothing compared to the SE Asian countries. That has probably been one of my biggest surprises. No wonder the world is in an energy crisis...China traded in all its bicycles for cars! Along the way, my driver asked me if I wanted to drive (NO WAY--the drivers are CRAZY here!) and indicated that he could teach me how to fish. Cute, and thanks, but I don't dig hanging out on frozen ponds.

I took a ton of pictures today but I can't post them all, so here are just a few of my favorites. I'm up to over 2,000 pictures now for my trip, and that is after having deleted a good number. Yay for pictures! By the time I'm done picking my winners, I'll probably be down to about 200, maybe. :)

Hiking the Wall--there just aren't words to express how completely and utterly fantastic it was from beginning to end. I wanted as authentic an experience as possible, so I not only hiked the Wall (which definitely qualifies as a hike in all senses of the word) but I also hiked up TO the Wall, which is another hike all on its own. Somehow the thought of taking a tram up to the Wall after flying thousands of miles to get here seemed like I would be cheating myself out of part of the experience. I can see why they have it, though, because when you do the first part, you're already tired by the time you get to the first tower, and the rest of the Wall is HIKE.

The benefit of coming to the Wall in wintertime is that even though your hands freeze, you pretty much have the Wall to yourself, which is not the case during other seasons. So, I sacrificed green trees for the experience of peace and silent awe. I ran into a few folks on the way, but not many. Had it been summertime, I would've opted to go to a different, more remote part of the wall that's supposed to be the most beautiful of all, but I was concerned that not enough people would be there and I would be in a real pickle if anything happened. Next time I hope to come when there are at least a few leaves on the trees and I have friends to accompany me on the adventure. :)

This goes down as my best day EVER!!!