I Met my Ancestors on the Wall...

Yes, it was me.  I will fully take responsibility for it.  I made the executive decision (that everyone agreed with) that we would not walk up the stairs to get to The Great Wall.   A two to three hour steep climb was not within any of our abilities after the day before.  So we rode a ski lift up and rode a super cool slide down.  

The drive to The Great Wall may have been uneventful for many but I was in awe of the many trees along the way and the uniformity of their growth pattern.  For miles and miles, they are all in uniform rows and painted with white paint about 3 feet up. The paint is supposed to be poison.  It reminded me of flying into Beijing and seeing what I thought to be tree farms.  In retrospect they probably were just “forests” - Chinese style.  

To be honest, the most memorable part of The Great Wall was standing on top of one of the watch towers and yelling, “Now all of China knows you are here!!!!” in honor of Mulan, the Disney movie.  I only made it to the second watch tower and decided that sitting and looking at the Great Wall in the shade would be the best activity for me.  

I spent the last hour people watching. Do you know that Chinese people eat cucumbers like I do?  They bring whole cucumbers along for snacks and just munch on them whole.  This is the only time in my life that I have seen people do this.  I felt instantly connected to them.  I have to be related to them somehow!?

So for their trek on The Great Wall, the locals brought whole cucumbers, steaming hot water in thermoses, apples, and various fruits and vegetables.  I feel like we could learn a lesson from their snack choices - except for the hot water. 

We finished the night at a yummy dumpling place where we had a ton of different kinds of dumplings.  During dinner I developed a migraine which put me in bed pretty early that night.  That hard bed in a dark room felt like Heaven.  I woke up a few hours later!  My headache was gone and I was ready to conquer the world at 9pm Beijing time.  Maybe not a good move on my part, but I actually slept fine.  My ninja-like sleeping skills come in handy again.