Back at it again in Beijing, 9 years later. It's like a different place with the same old buildings. The chaos that once consumed the city is no longer apparent. It could compare with cities in Europe; a beautiful mixture of the old and new. After concurring many European cities on my own, I have yet to take on China with all it's history and culture. Thankfully it just so happens that my friend Yan will also be in Beijing so we can concur together!
















On the second day we signed up to climb the Great Wall. This isn't your regular touristy Great Wall, I researched a tour group organized by a hostel where they take you to a part of the wall that wasn't purposely reconstructed for tourists. There were no other tourist in sight and it was beautiful and quaint. It must have been even more beautiful back then when the wall was still in tact. The Great Wall is indeed great, it was one of the early uses of light speed. When there was an attack at a certain part of the wall, the guard at that post would set fire to a big torch. The guard at the next post sees the fire and knows there is an intruder and sets fire to his post. One by one, the torches are lit and the words of the attack on the Chinese border is sent to the
Emperor within a few minutes.


Up the mountains, we were lead by a 73 year old local farmer who has lived in the village below the great wall all his life. He lead us on a 3 hour hike up the mountains and through some rough patches of the great wall. The people in our tour group were mainly westerners and our local tour guide didn't speak a word of English. Thankfully Yan and I can speak some Chinese and was able to chat with him. He's not well traveled, nor seen much of anything beyond his village, but everyday he is visited by a different group of tourists from all over the world. I guess it may be safe to say that though he has not seen the world, the world has seen him.

Plane, Dream, Titanic!

Have just survived a 14 hour flight to Seoul Korea and currently trying to kill 5 hours in the airport until my flight to Beijing. I had a lovely flight (fly Asiana!) but had a really crazy dream. I dreamed that I went on my super fun adventure trip to China and was really excited. Leaving out some minor irrelevant details, the next thing I know I was on a flight back to the United States and I don't know how I got on there! In the dream, I somehow unconsciously caught the return flight after only staying in China for like 2 days. After touching down in the states I was so disappointed I started talking to some random girl and telling her that this can't be happening because it seemed so real. I started freaking out and told her this has to be a dream and started yelling at her to wake me up! She kept on saying it's not a dream, it's not a dream. This continued for some time until I was awakened by the sound of food. The stewardesses were handing out sandwiches and I'm not one to miss a meal. And thankfully I was still on my way to China, phew!

I must get out of this internet cafe, someone is playing "My Heart Will Go On" over and over again. Ahhh. Apparently Titanic just came out.