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| William rushes on ahead to see what he can see. |
The playful wall became our secret world; we were free to roam wherever we pleased. We began scaling the many steps and barracks with nothing to hold us back, total freedom. The trials of the day seemed to melt away as I saw nothing but smiles on my friend's face, we had earned this: our Great Wall adventure. As we climbed our way over the Wall, through its steep crevasses and its guarding watchtowers, we really started to appreciate the world around us; the sun began to peak through the clouds, and everything was perfect.
The first signs of life we came across came in the form of a huge white wedding dress, not a very common site to find while hiking around in Jinshanling. The blushing bride was taking wedding pictures in one of the most romantic spots on the planet. William and I looked on in amazement of the whole production. I couldn't believe someone actually carried that dress up all that way, they are real champions. Wanting to avoid messing up the set up, we cautiously moved past the couple and continued on our journey.
Approaching one of the watchtowers toward Simatai we saw our second interaction with people. "Hello!, this way good!" A strange older Chinese lady had poked her head out of the tower and was motioning me upward. "Come, up here!" A second older Chinese lady poked her head out and looked down upon me, beckoning me upward. We scaled the rock face up to the watchtower and discovered that quite a few people had taken refuge inside. All Chinese, these people seemed to hangout without a care in the world, they were even using cell phones. A young man in a graphic tee and flip flops sat in the window of the tower with the world at his fingertips. This paradox of Old World Chinese culture and new age technology seemed out of place.
Not wanting to press our luck, we continued on our journey after a quick glance at my wrist watch. A path off the tower gave us a view of the Wall that not many people are privileged to see, we could see the blue skies over the country, the lush, greenery of the earth and of course, the Great Wall, with its dragon-like back playfully dancing its way across the mountains. I spotted a crumbling terrace that was to be our goal ending point and we headed out.
We continued our hike across the Wall, I was left wondering about the stories of those who built it so long ago. I wondered if they realized what a wonderful contribution they had made to the culture of China or if they were solely consumed with their nationalism and goal of keeping China safe.
The Wall seemed to stretch on forever, inviting us to keep taking just one more step, but we knew it was time to go. If we got stuck and missed our bus, a whole other world of problems would befall us, ones we were not excited to tango with. There was one more problem that our friend Murphy had decided to stick us with…I had lost my sunglasses. Somewhere along the wall, my beloved sunglasses had fallen off my head and in a frantic fury I ran back to the nearby tower to retrace my steps. When I had finally given up, no glasses in tow, we headed back toward home, hoping we had enough time to catch the last bus. Then, I spotted them, my sunglasses, tucked into a little corner of a watch tower; Murphy's Law was not going to catch me today.
After a long day of exploring and adventuring, we left the Wall unscathed and with my biggest "to do" in China officially checked off. The rain held out, the sun peeked its head through, and we ended up having a wonderful day in the countryside of China. Though I am not sure when the Wall and I will meet again, I can even now hear the call of adventure beckoning me back to the Wall once more.
