Great Wall of China and Terracotta Soldiers!

On Thursday, we met Tammy and Carmen to go to THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA! This was the whole reason I wanted to come to China. We went to the Badaling section, which is not what I would have chosen, but it wasn’t up to me. J Because my knee had been giving me fits, I went to try to take the cable car, only to discover that the cable car wasn’t working. On the way, I ran into some American college girls who I tagged along with for the rest of the day. It was quite fun and interesting. Because it was so cold, the Wall wasn’t very busy. However, I did meet tourists from all over the world. It was pretty spectacular.

My friends from New York!

The Wall was amazing. It is absolutely breathtaking (in more ways than one) and such a bucket list item! I never imagined that I would actually get to go and climb The Great Wall of China!

That night we again hopped a sleeper train to head to Xian, the home of the Terracotta Soldiers. This was Robyn’s Bucket list item. We arrived there early so it was not busy yet. Again, this is such a inspiring place. To think of the dedication it must have taken to create these warriors with such painstaking detail. Just Wow! There are so many of them and they are not even finished excavating. You can still see people attempting to piece the warriors together and working to bring them out of the earth.

When we arrived back in Beijing (after another sleeper train) we immediately went to the Paijayuan (sp?) Antique market! This was such an awesome place to go. It is truly a feast for all the senses. There are rows and rows of beautiful pottery, beads, silk, paintings, etc… Any souvenir you could want can be found here. At lunch, we met Carmen and her roommate Amy for some Peking Roast Duck, one of Beijing’s specialties. It was delicious. I then headed to explore the Temple of Heaven before meeting Robyn at the hotel to pack so we could head back to Taiwan!