Article
Originally posted on August 7, 2008
Every student and their host sibling went to the Great Wall on Sunday the 20th. The bus ride out to Jun Yong Guan was an enjoyable part of the trip. It was fascinating to see the transition from 50 story buildings to being surrounded by empty green mountains in just a few minutes. Climbing the Great Wall is not as glamorous as it is made out to be. The heat, humidity and 2 foot high steps make sweat appear on your forehead within 5 minutes. There were two routes up the wall from the valley at Jun Yong Guan and the whole group split up pretty evenly going both directions. I was surprised at how many people were on the Great Wall, I knew it was a huge tourist attraction, but there was hardly space to move for the first hundred yards up. After an hour I reached the top (where the wall was stopped) where the crowds were considerably smaller. The views from the top were incredible. You could gaze down upon highways winding through mountains, small villages, and the Great Wall itself stretched all across the landscape. The exhausted legs were a small price to pay to see that view.