The Great Wall deserves all capitals. I would even go as far to say that great could be an understatement. It is so hard to comprehend the size of it until you get there. No matter how many statistics you read about how large it is (it’s the longest manmade structure on earth and it can’t actually be seen from space), they don’t help in comprehending its size.

The Great Wall was built during 2000 years and its length is only approximated, some say it’s about 4000 miles. The wall is broken down into sections. The further you go from Beijing, the sections get more rugged and less touristy. We went to the Mutianyu section where you take a cable car or chair lift up the mountain to the wall and can take a toboggan down. It’s incredible!!

The top of the wall, I guess you could say, is full of steps. They follow the motion of the mountain and alternate between uphill and downhill and also vary in steepness. Some steps are large and require a little stretching and careful hand placement for stability, while others are awkwardly small steps.

We walked about 40 minutes to the end of the section and to an area that’s off limits. Many others were doing it as well and though I was freaking out the whole time about getting kicked out of China (Stephanie can vouch for this), it was a beautiful view!  After that, we turned around to head back to the bottom.

But how did we get down? TOBOGGAN! It was incredible. I tried to take a video via cleavage cam, but my phone cut off halfway down because I ran out of memory. It’s about a five minute toboggan ride down. Unfortunately, tumblr won’t allow me to attach a video in this post. So if anyone knows a way to do that on a website that isn’t blocked in China, hit me up :D

After the wall, we went to a nearby restaurant to eat and once our stomachs were full, we drove to Chaoyang Theater to see an acrobatic show. I was in heaven! Though it was nothing as artsy as a Cirque show, it had a slight campy feel to it. Though cheesy in colors and costumes, the skill and talent level was anything but amateur.

Acts included a metal sphere with eight men riding on motor bikes inside it, a woman who juggled/balanced parasols on her feet, hat juggling (SO much cooler than it sounds. They would put the hat back on their heads and toss it to others), a pendulum, and hand balancing acts. There was something kind of like silks/Spanish web, but it was a much thinner piece of material. Regardless, I was still in heaven.Their theater rules are very different from ours. You’re permitted to eat/drink in the theater and take pictures.

The Chinese have a palate different than ours. This includes corn flavored ice cream. It’s a light corn ice cream wrapped in a cake cone that looks like an ear of corn. It’s actually pretty good!

The following day was our last business visit and the day we headed to Tsinghua to move in. My first day teaching a class was nearing!