Great Wall of China!

Hello all,

Today is July 4th so you guys will probably be setting up your lawn chairs out where ever you guys are and resting w/ several plates of yummy food and waiting for the fireworks....while I climbed the GREAT WALL OF CHINA! I woke up today bright and early at 6:30am to get ready for the trip ahead. Shower, sunscreen SPF 70, bug spray, bottles of water, extra shirt, umbrella and of course a camera to take our hard work climbing the ancient structure. We got to the bus at 7:30am which left on time for 2hrs to reach the bottom of the wall. People were either asleep or awake snapping pictures of the trip to the wall. I was busy taking pictures so I didn't really sleep, but was just anxious to see one of the great wonders of the world---which can be seen

As I stepped out of the bus, it was surreal because everywhere was buses and little souvenir shops selling 'i have climbed the great wall' t-shirts and Mao paraphernalia..We had to make rounds to the bathroom because I doubt there be any on the actual wall. We got our tickets and began our climb up....oh dear god! We were sooooo lucky we went before the crowd and the sun rising over our heads. As we began our climb, sweat began to drop and accumulate! The climb itself I lost track of time, I was just thinking oh man, please let the next stairs led to the actual wall..Eventually we reached the wall itself and it was definitely worth it. The breeze, the view and just the epic-ness of it all was amazing! It was really an experience to be on top of that structure and to see what people might has saw all those years ago and follow the steps of the wall...(it's really slanted!)

Since we were there about 9:30am the sun wasn't out quite yet so it wasn't that bad, although I do believe I got some tanning done. There were brief moments of breeze when ever we needed it so it was really nice. There was a cute little kitty cat that meowed at us as we were climbing the wall..I was sad that I could not pet it because I did not know where it had been..but it was quite cute regardless..As we were making our way on the wall, we of course took massive amounts of pictures with us being silly :) What is a visit to the great wall of china without some silly/martial arts pictures lol Last year I have heard tales of giant mutant bugs that followed them and mosquitoes up the wazoo, but we were lucky enough to only have the mutant bugs following us but no bites.. As we were getting close to going down to the bus again, we took jumping pictures although I epically failed that...I never do good jumping pictures although I do like our group martial art poses :D As we were making our way down, mad people started heading up the wall so we were lucky to get there early enough to take some nice pictures without that many people. When we reached the bottom near where our bus was parked, I bargained for an awesome panda hat and some postcards lol Once we all got on the bus, we were all more or less knocked out until we reached school again..Talk about wipe out. I have uploaded the pictures along with other China photos on facebook so you guys can check it out.. (here are some)

The camel we saw right off the bus

Guardian Cat!

We made it up the Wall! :D

Please don't shoot..

Some martial arts pics on the Great Wall, of course! :P

Overboard!

Victory is MINE... puhahaha xD

And something for the way back... :D

Until the next time...

Sim Passed OUT!