last day in Beijing GREAT WALL!!

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BEIJING JULY 2ND
I CLIMBED THE GREAT WALL! I mean it was so surreal I could hardly believe we were actually walking the great wall—that is until we started walking. Right off the bat you could tell it was very tiring and very dangerous because of the steep steps, great height and large groups of tourists. By the first gate I was DYING!! We supposedly started on the 8th gate, which happened to be the steepest, and there were about 5 gates in total, I made it to about gate 1 ½. After a while it was getting hard to breathe, the steps became very inconsistent, and I became more and more afraid of falling off or puking on the side of the great wall that I just said forget it and went back down. I bought a medallion with my name on it saying that I climbed the great wall. I also bought an ice-cream.
Afterwards we ate a jade factory/restaurant. The jade was amazing and incredibly detailed and very expensive—I didn’t want to think about how much the jade would cost if any of them were broken. Inside the building you could actually see the workers using their machines and carving into the jade. It was cool to see them work like that.

After this we hit the Ming tombs. The Ming tombs were a breeze to me. Basically I just followed the line ahead of us, next thing I know we were already leaving. I guess I didn’t really enjoy the Ming tombs as much as I thought because for most of the historical relics you saw within the tombs, you had to read the summaries that described their significance but I didn’t really do that because I didn't have time and because I was tired so I found myself taking pictures of things, not because I understood its significance but because everyone else was taking photos of it.

After Ming tombs we had a farewell dinner. We dressed semi-formal for it. Except for James and Donny because they brought suits (haha) However, because it was the last night we all, including the Chinese students john, bob, and Maggie, decided to play ping pong with each other. Bob was really god and ended up beating everyone he played. After that we hit the karaoke bar until about midnight or so. That karaoke bar was unlike any karaoke bar If ever seen! It was designed more like a hotel or a club than a karaoke bar. From the outside looking in I definitely would've thought it was a hotel! It was pretty funny hearing Dr. To and James and Donny and Mario singing...not so much because of their singing--but because of their song choices! (ie backstreet boys, James Blunt, Akon). I crashed when we got back to the hotel at around 2am since I had to wake up at 6am to catch our 10am flight to Hong Kong. That sucks.

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